THE CHRISTIAN AFRIKANERS
A Brief History of Calvinistic Afrikanerdom from 1652-1980
In view of the decades-long defamation of the Christian Afrikaners [which needs to be countered] we excerpt from Dr Lee’s lectures given at the Geneva Divinity School in Texas during 1980.
Establishing Reformed Christianity in South Africa
In 1652, when the godly governor Jan van Riebeeck MD arrived at the Cape to “build a fort and a garden and a town not only to the advantage and profit of the honourable Dutch East India Company, but also for the preservation and salvation of many human lives” that Company pledged itself “to the magnification of God’s Holy Name and the propagation of His Holy Gospel. ”
Sunday Observance
Six months after his arrival, on the 14th of October 1652, Governor van Riebeeck enacted measures against Sabbath desecration. Thus Sunday Observance has always been the political policy and social pattern of South Africa ever since the advent of its civilisation. Abstentions from Sunday worship at the Cape were punished by confiscation of six day’s wine ration for the first transgression; by forfeiture of one month’s salary for the second transgression, and by a sentence of one year’s unpaid labour in chains for the third transgression.
The Castle
The Dutch built a castle and cultivated fresh vegetables all the way from Table Bay to Wynberg. At Kirstenbosch they erected a hedge: to demarcate the boundary between the new White settlers and the Asian people who wandered around without owning land. Of course, there was some miscegenation and intermarriage between the first Dutchmen that arrived there — and some of those Asian women. As soon as the Asian women were baptised in the Name of the Trinity, they were treated on the basis of complete equality — and intermarriage was permitted. But it was soon discovered that there were still cultural differences between the Hottentots and the Whites which the White Christians had not originally understood. So, as early as 1685. laws were enacted preventing further intermarriage between Whites and non-Whites.
The Huguenots
In 1688. the French Huguenots arrived. They brought with them the Gallic Confession. This teaches that the Lord put the sword into the hands of the State — to resist not only sins against the Second but also against the First Table of the Law of God. Those settlers brought the Bible and techniques of wine farming and learning from the very best levels of French society. Hence South Africa has many French place names. There is Franschhoek, the ‘corner’ where the French settled, and La Rochelle named after the Calvinist Confession of La Rochelle back in the old country. For the rest, however, the French Huguenots were quickly absorbed into the German- Dutch community. The French in turn thoroughly Calvinised the German-Dutch while doing this.
The Dutch had themselves brought preachers at an earlier stage – on the very first ships to Cape Town. They had also brought special laymen called ‘Sieketroosters’ who were salaried by the Dutch East India Company — to pray for the sick and dying. Afrikaans, the White South African language today, is an interesting mixture of 17th century German and Dutch, with a little English thrown in. Yet there are also some French words — and especially the French double negative, which is firmly rooted in the Afrikaans language but is not found in Dutch itself. – From 1690 to 1700, more Germans arrived — as officials, traders, and farmers. These were people like Martin Melck and Anton Anreith the sculptor… From 1720-1820, other Europeans arrived — Scandinavians, Swiss, Frisians, Czechs, and Britons.
South Africa is a dynamic country, a country dedicated to freedom — from Europe, from the French Revolution, from the colonial interference of Britain, Holland, and France… It is largely barren, stony, rugged, grassless and sandy, with just a solitary tree here and there. Yet the great Calvinist poet and Bible translator, Totius, saw it as a country constantly outgrowing itself. He wrote: “The White child treks into South Africa; treks on into the land both wide and far; as far as he can see, until the night. And farther still, when the next dawn gives light. Trek on, we’re not yet far enough! Let’s trek! How far? As far as God would have us trek!”
The Fruits of Calvinism
As we pointed out, in 1652 Dr Johan van Riebeeck MD knelt upon the beach near the later Cape Town, bringing the first colonists with him and praying that “The true Reformed Christian doctrine may be promulgated and disseminated throughout the land. ” On the ship he brought with him some preachers and special laymen. Just as Pieter Stuyvesant went to New York and there established the Dutch Reformed Church, so did Pieter van der Stal, the first preacher, arrive in South Africa. He established the first Reformed Congregation at the Cape — on behalf of, and answerable to the Presbytery of Amsterdam.
The eschatology of victory dominated the history of the Afrikaner. Round about 1700, many native White South Africans started claiming to be Afrikaners, long before any Black people in Africa had even heard the word ‘African’ (let alone knew what it means). These Afrikaners’ objected to the perceived authoritarianism of Holland. Huguenots like Adam Tas became more and more involved in moving for increasing measures of South African self-government. They disliked the Dutch control of the Cape. These were people who had been grounded in Calvin’s Gallic Confession, which required the government to be godly in terms of the Ten Commandments. They were much like the North American colonists who began to agitate (against Britain) for this sort of thing also from about 1700 – 1720 onward.
White meets Black at the Eastern Cape
Round about 1780, just as the Americans were winning their independence, a major event took place in South Africa. The dissatisfied White settlers, as they moved eastward and northward away from Cape Town, for the first time suddenly encountered Black people that they had never seen before. Thus the Whites had been in South Africa for 128 years before they met the first Blacks. They met in the eastern portion of what is now South Africa.
The Whites had moved out eastward and northward from Cape Town. The Blacks had been moving down from East Africa, southbound. They moved on through the south eastern fringe of Africa — with other tribes to the north of them pushing these advancing tribes down into what is now South Africa. Things might have gone well, if it had not been for a handful of greedy Whites who wanted to grab more land … and more than a handful of greedy Blacks who raided their White neighbours’ cattle. The Whites were not very happy with having their cows burgled. They undertook reprisals, and this led from 1780 onward over the next couple of decades to the so-called Ten Kafir Wars.
Now the word Kaffir in South Africa has become a word of abuse which most Blacks resent. They wrongly think that the Whites calling them Kaffirs are implying they are not Christians, while all that would be implied is that they are not Moslems. In that sense, I myself would certainly want to be a Kaffir or a non-Moslem!
Sound Domestic Morality and Respect for Religion.
By 1795, there were 20, 000 Afrikaans speaking Whites in South Africa. The 1973 Encyclopaedia Britannica says about them (in its article on South Africa): “Although all the Trekkers who were trekking northward and eastward through South Africa were extreme individualists and some were ruffians, most of them did contrive to preserve a sound domestic morality. ” They were not unlearned, for “they strove to preserve a smattering of literacy. ” The Britannica adds: “They read almost only the Bible and their Catechism. ” I myself cannot think of anything better to read than the Bible and the Catechism! Indeed, the Britannica concludes that “they did also preserve a respect for their religion, a rather strict form of Calvinism.” – Well, Afrikaner Christians can be proud to be described by Humanists, in the Britannica, that way. Even though these descriptions were hardly intended to be compliments!
Various Calvinistic republics began to be set up on the frontier. It is significant that these were set up by White South Africans at the very time Holland succumbed first to the French Revolution and thereafter to Napoleon. At the very time Holland was going down, the South Africans reached the end of their tether with the Dutch. Many moved farther and farther afield from Cape Town — up into the desert and the grasslands. There they established what they called the Republic of Swellendam, and later set up a second new state which they called the Republic of Graaff-Reinet. This is a very important town on the edge of the desert. Today (1980) it is a powerful centre of Calvinist education. I am sure it became so as a result of the godly Rev Dr Andrew Murray, whom you have all heard about. I mean the internationally famous writer of devotional literature. He was born in Graaff-Reinet in the manse of the Reformed Congregation there which his father pastored.
This then is the picture which now emerges. Back in the “mother country” — Holland fell to the French Revolution in 1795; and then, again, later to Napoleon. Calvinist Roman-Dutch Law was then abolished in Holland by the occupying French, and replaced with the Napoleonic Code. That severely amputated South Africa from Holland. For South Africa continued with the old Calvinistic Roman-Dutch Law of Calvin and Voetius.
To be continued
*Dr Lee was Chairman of the Department of Systematic Theology & Church History at the Queensland Presbyterian Theological Hall, Brisbane, Australia. He died at the end of 2011.
