Cultural and theological factors affecting relationships between the Nederduitse-Gereformeerde Kerk and the Anglican Church (of the Province Of South Africa) in the Cape Colony 1806 -1910

The structure of this study of inter-church relationships abounds with artificialities. First, there is the artificiality of its geographical setting. It is confined to the Cape Colony Which, although permissible during the years when no other conventionally recognized political entity - at least, to Western eyes - existed in South Africa, and justifiable in terms of the jurisdiction of the N.G.K. Cape synod, becomes sheer artificiality so far as the Anglican Church is concerned. For the Church of the Province of South Africa never saw itself as limited by the frontiers of the Cape Colony. One of its earliest dioceses was that of Natal, and by 1910 it was at work throughout southern Africa south of the Zambezi. Despite its diocesan organization, the C.P.S.A. and its members were very aware of the total scope of Anglicanism at the bottom end of the African continent, and would have regarded a study confined to the Cape Colony as not truly representative of Anglican realities. Secondly, there is the artificiality of the chronological periods into which I have divided the study. I have, in fact, used an Anglican yardstick: the episcopate of Robert Gray, and have divided the study into a pre-Gray (1806-1848), a Gray (1848-1872) and a post-Gray (1872-1910) period. This hardly fits the course of events in the N.G.K., for the coming and going of Gray disturbed the sequence of that body's life hardly at all. And yet, perhaps, the division has something to be said for it, for it was pre-episcopal Anglicanism that had to relate to the N.G.K. in its pre-Church Ordinance (1843) days; both laboured and toiled over much the same ground in the 60's; both were caught up in the quickening antagonisms of the latter years of the century. Thirdly, there is the artificiality inherent in describing the inter-relationship of two church bodies as manifested in a purely local setting. Clearly, in dealing with cultural and theological factors, mention will have to be made of the cultural and theological roots of the two denominations, but these will tend to be mere back-ground to their outworking in the Cape scene. It will have to be constantly borne in mind that Anglicans saw themselves within the total context of a Church that was spreading from native England to every continent, spreading as the Empire did, while the N.G.K., conversely, moved away from its traditional moorings in the Netherlands, while strongly maintaining the Reformation principles of its European origins.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Religious Studies

Year dc:date.issued

1980

Author dc:creator

• Le Feuvre, Philip

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• De Gruchy, John W

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/18482

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/18482