Book Reviews / CHRC .– () –
Erica Meijers, Blanke broeders—zwarte vreemden. De Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk, de Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland en de apartheid in Zuid-Afrika –. Verloren, Hilversum , pp. isbn . .
Traditionally, the Dutch have special feelings for South Africa. In the Dutch East India Company founded a maritime station at the shores of Table Bay, which expanded into a colonial settlement, Dutch in language, law, and religion. Although British since , most colonists (who called themselves Hollands-Afrikaander Boers or Afrikaners) clung to this Dutch heritage. In the second quarter of the nineteenth century, thousands of them trekked north and established the Boer republics of Natalia, Orange Free State, and Transvaal. For preachers and teachers, these early republics were depended on immigrants from the Netherlands, where the Afrikaners were seen as family, stamverwanten (kin). Pro-Boer feelings ran high in the Netherlands during the Anglo-Boer War of – and sympathies for South Africa dominated the Dutch for many generations, welcoming the development of Afrikaner culture and nationalism. After , however, these deep-seated pro-Boer sympathies were super- seded rapidly by a general rejection of the policy of apartheid and stimulated a number of radical anti-apartheid organizations. Sympathy changed into aver- sion, love into hate. The traditional stamverwantschap had always been coloured by elements of Dutch cultural imperialism, and as the older partner in the ‘Greater Holland’ the Dutch felt their moral obligation to teach and preach the younger broedervolk, now evidently gone astray. Dutch anti-apartheid therefore was characterised by a strong ideological and moral appeal. A central role was fulfilled by the Protestant churches, especially the Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk and the Gereformeerde Kerken in Nederland. Their involvement was admitted even by anti-religious people— Calvinist theologians were thought to be the only capable to continue the dialogue with the hard-line Christian national defenders of the apartheid in South Africa. Traditionally, there was an intimate relation between the reformed churches in both countries, which had a strong personal element too: many South African theologians had studied in the Netherlands. The Kampen Ph.D.dissertation of Erica Meijers—an anti-apartheid activist in the ’s—is a well-researched, detailed survey of the anti-apartheid role of the both Dutch reformed churches in the years –. In that period “white brothers became strangers, and black strangers became allies.” In , the Dutch and South African reformed churches considered each other as dear brethren; their encounters were white brothers only meetings. The apartheid
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, DOI: 10.1163/187124110X542879 Book Reviews / CHRC .– () – policy of the National Party in South Africa, endorsed by most South African Calvinists, in the Netherlands at first evoked only friendly fraternal questions. But prominent Dutch clerics visiting South Africa and representatives of the World Council of Churches reacted with increasing criticism; in the same years, religious, social, and political developments in the Netherlands weak- ened the feelings of stamverwantschap and strengthened the call for decoloniza- tion and democratisation, the end of racism and the introduction of human rights. Proponents, however, thought different on various points: dialogue with the Afrikaners or their isolation, the role of the black churches, the use of boy- cotts and violence, etc. And they differed in theological arguments, to build these views on. In the ’s, there was much reconnoitring. Influential church leaders as J.H. Bavinck and J.J. Buskes for example both denied any biblical argument for apartheid; but Bavinck did not join Buskes’ anti-apartheid organisation, while most churchgoers, out of a traditional sympathy for the Afrikaner nation and culture, gave the policy of apartheid the benefit of the doubt. But Sharpeville made a radical change. According to many, the time for dialogue and the- ological discussion was over, only prophecy, protest, and action remained. The Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk was the first to reject officially the apartheid—the more democratic Gereformeerde Kerken hadmoretimetotakethisposition— and by both churches supported the anti-apartheid programs of the World Council of Churches. This anti-apartheid attitude was one of the results of a general process of change, theologically and religiously; in the ’s both churches embraced ecumenicalism, freedom movements, and black theology. At the same time they had learned to reject as obstacles to ecumenical broth- erhood and justice a whole a series of orthodox and traditional theological concepts as scheppingsordinanties, volkskerk, the whole Kuyperian theology and ecclesiology. Meijers studied a specific element and period of the Dutch church history, the debate on apartheid as example of the fundamental change of post-war Dutch Protestantism. Blanke broeders—zwarte vreemden is an interesting and readable book, based on solid research and full of facts. The story is well- balanced, but scanty in phrasing of questions and issues. There is no definition of apartheid, no discussion of the place and importance of theology and ethics in the debate on apartheid. Neither a questioning of the possible contribution of Dutch synods, church meetings, and theologians to the sociopolitical reality in South Africa under apartheid. Not even a theological analysis of the fact, that most anti-apartheid rulings of synods and other church meetings were political and sociological statements in theological garb. What endows churchmen to