Calvin. History and Reception of a Reformation Week 4. The Spread of Calvinism Sequence 10. The Ambiguities of Calvinism in South Africa My name is Henry Mottu. I am emeritus professor at the University of Geneva's Theological Faculty. My main area of focus is Practical Theology. Today's sequence is devoted to the ambiguities of Calvinism in South Africa, a a topic both broad and sensitive. Calvinism in South Africa can be viewed as a paradox: on the one hand, it was used to legitimize apartheid, yet, in the 20th century especially, it also produced a powerful
critique of apartheid. This is the paradox we'll be exploring today. Much of what I'll say is based on the work of the South African theologian John W. de Gruchy, who has studied this question extensively
(and is himself a member of the Reformed Church of South Africa). First, we'll explore the justification of apartheid by the Calvinist Church, the famous Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa. We will then discuss the Calvinist critique of apartheid that arose mainly in the 20th century. The term "Afrikaner" refers to the white minority in South Africa whose native tongue is Afrikaans and which has forged an identity over the course of several centuries. Its history is well-known; I won't go over it in detail. Everything started with the arrival of Dutch settlers in the Cape, in 1652, whereupon numerous Reformed churches were established. Among the settlers were also French Huguenots who had fled France following the revoking of the Edict of Nantes. Sociologically and historically, the important thing is that there were two distinct groups: an urban, more liberal group that remained in and around the Cape,
and a second group made up of farmers who moved northward, into
the mainland of South Africa to cultivate the land. The distinction between these groups is very important, because this dichotomy -- urbanized, liberal settlers on the one hand; fundamentalist Calvinist farmers on the other -- continued
to shape South African society over the course of many centuries. The Afrikaans word for farmer is "boer," and the population of free Afrikaner farmers who migrated north from the Cape came to be known as the "free Boers." And it is this group that fought tooth and nail for segregation over the course of almost four centuries: from 1652 (roughly) to the 1980s and 90s, when apartheid was finally abolished. Why did the Boers, with the support of the Dutch Reformed Church, want to separate whites and blacks? For three main reasons. When the British came to South Africa, towards the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, conflict broke out between the British and the Boers. The Boers positioned themselves in opposition to this influx of liberal, English-speaking settlers and defended their unique group identity, which they defined on a threefold basis:
a) their language, Afrikaans, which served as a unifying factor; b) a largely mythical interpretation of their own history, in which they likened their "great trek" towards the north to the story of Israel's exodus from Egypt; and c) a religious identity articulated around the notions of "chosen people" and "divine mission." The Boer's Afrikaner identity, their "Afrikanerdom," was thus built on a common language, a mythical history and a religion based essentially on the Old Testament. Afrikanerdom, broadly
speaking, can be described as a combination of two parallel identities: Afrikaner and Boer. The Boers' hermeneutics -- that is, their interpretation of Scripture -- was quite fundamentalist. Over the course of the centuries, they used a certain number of Biblical passages, such as Genesis 9 (the story of Shem, which they misunderstood or misrepresented), Genesis 10 (the
descendance of Noah and the dissemination of the nations), among others, -- all of which they interpreted literally -- to support their ideology. Thus they elaborated a hermeneutics to serve their purpose, based on the notion of predestination and on defining themselves as a chosen people -- which implies, of course, that all others are
not. This hermeneutics is best described, ultimately, as fraudulently Calvinistic. This ideology, unfortunately, enjoyed the support of many separatist (at times even racist) theologians, such as the Dutchman Abraham Kuyper (end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th), who was
particularly concerned with the geographical distribution of different peoples all over the earth. For Kuyper, God is sovereign over all peoples, and God assigns to each certain rights and duties. This leads to a specific geographical dissemination of various peoples across the earth. At the outset, apartheid was not so much an oppressive ideology as one that focused on the distribution, or partitioning, of peoples so as to properly separate them. Of course, this could only be an illusion. It remains that the Boers based themselves to no small extent on Kuyper's theology. A quick word on predestination: the Boer ideology rested on an erroneous understanding of predestination. Indeed, they believed the world to be divided into two groups: whites and blacks, i.e., the elect and the reprobate. Yet this is a gross oversimplification, a caricature even, of Calvin's doctrine. Calvin's doctrine is based first and foremost on God's call, on God's election -- on God's summoning of each person to believe and to serve his fellow man. Calvin's theory of predestination reflects a very active, even activist, interpretation of the Bible and of life, as opposed to the rigid, fixed beliefs of the Afrikaners, for whom everyone's place
in society is predetermined and unchangeable. So that's an overview of the ideology that arose in the mid-17th century and endured until the end of the 19th / beginning of the 20th century. Now, let's take a look at the role played by what I would call an "authentic Calvinism" in the abolition of apartheid. First, a quick history of apartheid. Apartheid was instituted in 1948, with the election of the main Afrikaner nationalist party, and this regime maintained itself, largely unchallenged and increasingly
self-isolated, into the 1960s and 70s. It was not until the 1970s and 80s that a meaningful reaction took shape, including from Calvinist theologians and communities, in favor of its abolition. What was this reaction based on? A rediscovery of the social, egalitarian aspects of Calvinism. Certain long-forgotten texts were brought back to the forefront; parallels were drawn between the refugees welcomed by Geneva in the 16th century and modern-day South
African blacks. Certain passages in the Gospel were invoked ("God shows no partiality," "One God and father of all," etc.). This newly-found conscience led to the creation, in 1982, of a new confession of faith: the Confession of Belhar (near Capetown), which, for the first time, declared in no
uncertain terms that the notion of separate churches is incompatible with the Gospel. It also asserted that "the church as the possession of God must stand where the Lord stands, namely against injustice and with the wronged." Thus, for the first time, apartheid was condemned as contrary to the Gospel in the 1970s and 80s. The God described in the Belhar Confession of Faith is a God who wants all people,
all humans, to live together as brothers and sisters -- as a single family. This notion of "one family" is very important in terms of segregation: it denies that the world is made up of separate, distinct peoples, pointing instead to the "human family" as a whole. In 1982, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, meeting in Ottawa, officially condemned, for the first time, those of its churches -- particularly the Dutch churches -- that continued
to defend apartheid. This long story -- from the middle of the 17th century to the second half of the 20th -- finally came to an end with the unequivocal condemnation of apartheid and the creation of
a Truth and Reconciliation Commission led by Bishop Desmond Tutu, followed in 1994 by
the holding of free general elections and the presidency of Nelson Mandela. So that's an quick overview of this very complex page in history, which I've tried to summarize for you as best I can. Thank you.
