Origins in the Cape Colony in
Cape Town is the church building of the oldest existing congregation in
southern Africa When the
Dutch East India Company sent
Jan van Riebeeck to start a Dutch settlement at the
Cape of Good Hope in 1652, most of the company's employees were members of the Dutch Reformed Church. At first there were no ordained ministers from the Netherlands but only a sick comforter. In 1665,
Johan van Arckel arrived in the
Cape Colony and became its first minister. A
consistory was formed but was still subject to the control of the
classis (presbytery) of
Amsterdam. In 1688, 200
Huguenot refugees arrived at the Cape. Though at first allowed to hold services in French, they were eventually assimilated into the Dutch-speaking population and became members of the Dutch Reformed Church, which had a monopoly in territory controlled by the company. An exception was eventually allowed for a
Lutheran church in
Cape Town (many of the company's employees were German). During the
Napoleonic Wars, the British occupied the Cape Colony in 1795 to prevent the French from doing so. The French had occupied the Netherlands, and so the link between the church in the colony and the Amsterdam classis was broken. The first British occupation was temporary, but in 1806 a long-term occupation was undertaken. For the next century, the colony would be under British control. Ministers from the Netherlands were not as willing to serve in what they now considered a foreign country, and the British authorities were not keen to have them.
Presbyterian ministers from Scotland were encouraged to serve the needs of the Dutch Reformed Church in the Cape. The church was semi-
established, and the government helped with stipends of ministers.
Divisions (1853–1859) The colony had expanded a long way beyond the Cape Peninsula in the preceding two centuries, both to the north and the east, and on the eastern frontier the Dutch farmers came into contact with
Xhosa-speaking cattle herders. There were conflicts over grazing and water and cattle rustling across the frontier. The frontier farmers did not like the way the government in Cape Town handled the situation, and the
ending of slavery in 1834 was another bone of contention.
Afrikaner Calvinism was developing a different worldview to that of the British rulers, and many farmers left the Cape Colony in the
Great Trek during the 1830s and 1840s. The Dutch Reformed ministers generally tried to discourage them and, as the Dutch Reformed Church was the established church of the colony, did not initially provide pastoral ministry for the emigrant farmers, who eventually formed several independent republics in present-day South Africa. Several of the republics in the land beyond the
Vaal ("
Transvaal") eventually merged to form the
South African Republic in 1852. Because the NGK was seen by the trekkers as being an agent of the Cape government, they did not trust its ministers and emissaries, seeing them as part of the
British Empire's attempts to annex the
Boer Republics. A minister from the Netherlands,
Dirk Van der Hoff, went to the Transvaal in 1853 and became the first minister of the newly established
Dutch Reformed Church (NHK), which became the
state church of the South African Republic in 1860. . There were also religious divisions among the trekkers themselves. The more conservative ones (known as
Doppers) were opposed to singing hymns that had not been determined to be scripturally sound in church. There was controversy in the Netherlands over hymn singing as well resulting in a group breaking away from the Dutch Reformed Church to form the
Christian Reformed Churches. A minister from this group,
Dirk Postma, traveled to the South African Republic and was accepted as a minister of the NHK. After learning that he and his congregation could be required to sing these untested hymns, however, he and the Doppers broke away from the state church to form the
Reformed Churches in South Africa (GK) in 1859. There were thus now three Dutch Reformed churches in what would become South Africa—the NGK (the Cape Synod), the NHK (the state church of the South African Republic), and the GK (led by Postma).
Expansion (1860s–1902) Meanwhile, in the NGK there was more controversy over
theological liberalism and
conservatism. An
evangelical revival led by
Andrew Murray tipped the balance away from theological liberalism. One result of the revival was that many young men felt called to the ministry, and a seminary was opened at Stellenbosch. The NGK was thus no longer dependent on getting its clergy from overseas, and as most of the recruits to the ministry had emerged from the revival this was the dominant element. One of its features was a kind of Reformed "
Lent", between
Ascension Day and
Pentecost, a custom that eventually spread beyond the confines of the NGK. The revival also led to an interest in mission work which led to the establishment of the Dutch Reformed Mission Church for
Coloureds and the Dutch Reformed Church in Africa for Black people. These were entirely segregated from the white churches, but eventually united to form the
Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa. The NGK expanded from the Cape Colony, but in Natal and the two inland republics it set up separate synods that were at first loosely federated but later developed a closer relationship. Following the end of the
Second Boer War in 1902, the NGK played an important role in reconstruction efforts and preventing Afrikaners from becoming anglicised. As the church ministers became increasingly involved in attempts to uplift the Afrikaner people, they also became politicised, and many became spokesmen for
Afrikaner nationalism.
Recent history , Namibia The Church initially supported
apartheid and as a result in 1982 was expelled from the
World Alliance of Reformed Churches which declared apartheid to be a sin. In 1986 during the General Synod the church changed its stance on apartheid and opened its doors to people of all races (the Andrew Murray ministry within the Dutch Reformed Church, since its inception, had its doors open to people of different cultural backgrounds and ethnicities). After various processes the Church has been accepted back into the
World Alliance of Reformed Churches. In recent years, there have been efforts at reuniting the various branches of South Africa's Dutch Reformed tradition. From 6 to 8 November 2006, 127 representatives of the GK, the Uniting Reformed Church and the Dutch Reformed Church met at Achterbergh near Krugersdorp to discuss the reunification and how this can be realised. The
Dutch Reformed Churches Union Act Repeal Act, 2008 of the
Parliament of South Africa has one of its objectives as to "remove obstacles in the unification process of the Verenigende Gereformeerde Kerk, Reformed Church of Africa and the Dutch Reformed Churches without legislative intervention". ==Doctrine and polity==