Date: Wednesday, 28 June 2017

Time: 14:00 

Venue: Research Commons (4th floor of the library), Groenkloof Campus, University of Pretoria  

RSVP: [email protected] by Monday, 26 June 2017

Abstract:

This paper, which is based on my most recent publication titled Maar we wisten ons door de Heer geroepen. Kerk en apartheid in transnationaal perspectief (Hilversum: Verloren, 2017) (We knew, however, that we were called by the Lord. The Church and apartheid in transnational perspective), is an exploration of the cultural and political transfers that took place between the Netherlands and South Africa.

Dutch migrants who arrived in 20th-century South Africa entered a society that was thoroughly divided along colour lines. They often joined a local white church or, backed by fellow believers in the Netherlands, founded their own churches. From the 1970s South African students and vicars of all races, moving in the opposite direction, travelled to the Netherlands to study theology and exchange ideas and experiences. During this time, Dutch missionaries also worked among black South Africans. There was thus a lively exchange of people and ideas between the Netherlands and South Africa, which was nourished by official church organisations, social-religious communities or kinship networks. An important factor in this exchange was a Protestant version of Christianity, which was dominant in both countries. 

In this paper, I focus on the entanglements between the Protestant Netherlands and Protestant South Africa during the years of the apartheid regime. How did political, cultural and religious transfers influence the debate on apartheid in these two countries? Historians, theologians and an anthropologist from South Africa and the Netherlands explored these complex entanglements of religion and politics. Both the proponents and the opponents of apartheid regarded themselves as being 'called by the Lord'. In this paper I discuss the ecclesiastically and theologically founded support for, and opposition to the apartheid politics.