Maranatha Reformed Church of Christ | |
---|---|
Classification | Protestant |
Orientation | Continental Reformed |
Theology | Calvinist |
Governance | Presbyterian |
Associations | World Communion of Reformed Churches [1] |
Region | South Africa |
Origin | 1923 |
Separated from | Free Church of Scotland |
Congregations | 68 (2004) [2] |
Members | 23,940 (2004) [2] |
The Maranatha Reformed Church of Christ (MRCC) is a Christian Reformed denomination founded in 1923, in South Africa, by former members of the Free Church of Scotland, due to disputes relating to the administration of the sacraments. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]
In 1923, the Free Church of Scotland congregation of KwaZulu-Natal allowed unordained missionaries to administer the sacraments. This generated revolt among the members, so that 400 people split from the denomination and formed the Zulu Reformed Missionary Church, which grew up among the Zulu. From the planting of churches and the joining of others, the denomination spread to various parts of the country. Therefore, the name changed to Bantu Reformed Church. [3]
In 1977, the denomination's first general assembly was organized and its name was changed to Reformed Church in Southern Africa (in Afrikaans Hervormde Kerk in Suidelike Africa). In 2006, the denomination changed its name again to Maranatha Reformed Church of Christ (MRCC). [3]
As a predominantly black church, it has never merged with other white-majority Reformed denominations, but has worked closely with the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NHK) since its founding. [3] [6] [7]
The denomination subscribes to the Heidelberg Catechism and Canons of Dort as its symbols of faith. Furthermore, it recognizes the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, Apostles' Creed and Athanasian Creed as faithful expositions of biblical doctrines. [2]
IRMC is a member of the World Communion of Reformed Churches. [1] In addition, it has close relationships with the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NHK) and the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa. [4] [5]
Afrikaner Calvinism is a cultural and religious development among Afrikaners that combined elements of seventeenth-century Calvinist doctrine with a "chosen people" ideology based in the Bible. It had origins in ideas espoused in the Old Testament of the Jews as the chosen people.
The Dutch Reformed Church was the largest Christian denomination in the Netherlands from the onset of the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century until 1930. It was the traditional denomination of the Dutch royal family and the foremost Protestant denomination until 2004, the year it helped found and merged into the Protestant Church in the Netherlands. It was the larger of the two major Reformed denominations, after the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands was founded in 1892. It spread to the United States, South Africa, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Brazil, and various other world regions through Dutch colonization. Allegiance to the Dutch Reformed Church was a common feature among Dutch immigrant communities around the world and became a crucial part of Afrikaner nationalism in South Africa.
The Reformed Ecumenical Council (REC) was an international organization of Calvinist churches. It had 39 member denominations from 25 countries in its membership, and those churches have about 12 million people together. It was founded August 14, 1946 in Grand Rapids, Michigan as the Reformed Ecumenical Synod. The Reformed Ecumenical Council was the second largest international Calvinist alliance and the more conservative of the two largest. In 1953, The Reformed Ecumenical Synod meeting in Edinburgh decided to advise its member churches not to join the World Council of Churches as currently constituted because it “permits essentially different interpretations of its doctrinal basis, and thus the nature of the Christian faith” and “represents itself as a Community of faith, but is actually not this” due to member churches holding “basically divergent positions.”
NHK is the Japanese public broadcasting corporation.
The Reformed Evangelical Anglican Church of South Africa (REACH-SA), known until 2013 as the Church of England in South Africa (CESA), is a Christian denomination in South Africa. It was constituted in 1938 as a federation of churches. It appointed its first bishop in 1955. It is an Anglican church and it relates closely to the Sydney Diocese of the Anglican Church of Australia, to which it is similar in that it sees itself as a bastion of the Reformation and particularly of reformed doctrine.
The Dutch Reformed Church is a Reformed Christian denomination in South Africa. It also has a presence in neighbouring countries, such as Namibia, Eswatini, and parts of Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia. In 2013 it claimed 1.1 million members and 1,602 ordained ministers in 1,158 congregations.
Dirk Van der Hoff was minister of the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk, one of the Dutch Reformed Churches in South Africa.
The Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa was formed by the union of the black and coloured Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk mission churches.
The World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) is the largest association of Reformed (Calvinist) churches in the world. It has 230 member denominations in 108 countries, together claiming an estimated 80 million people, thus being the fourth-largest Christian communion in the world after the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion. This ecumenical Christian body was formed in June 2010 by the union of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and the Reformed Ecumenical Council (REC).
Protestantism in South Africa accounted for 73.2% of the population in 2010. Approximately 81% of South Africans are Christian and 5 out of 6 Christians are Protestant. Later censuses do not ask for citizens’ religious affiliations. Estimates in 2017 suggested that 62.5% of the population are Protestant.
The Dutch Reformed Church in Africa is a Reformed Christian denomination based in South Africa. It also has congregations in Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Along with the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK) and the Reformed Churches in South Africa, the NHKA is one of the three Dutch Reformed sister churches of South Africa. The NHKA retains the old Nomenclature Nederduitsch, the word originally referring to the Dutch language. The word refers to the Low Saxon language today. The Dutch language remained the official language of the church until 1933 when the church started functioning almost exclusively in Afrikaans.
The Restored Reformed Church is a Calvinist denomination in the Netherlands. It was founded in 2004, from congregations which made up the orthodox-reformed wing of the Dutch Reformed Church; they had previously been part of groups named Het Gekrookte Riet and the still existing Gereformeerde Bond within the Dutch Reformed Church. The Church has grown steadily since its founding.
The Reformed Churches in South Africa is a Christian denomination in South Africa that was formed in 1859 in Rustenburg. Members of the church are sometimes referred to as Doppers.
Albertus (Albert) Stephanus Geyser was a South African cleric, scholar and anti-apartheid theologian. Geyser became an outcast in the white Afrikaner community because of his theological opposition to apartheid and to the Broederbond, the secret male Calvinist organisation that covertly steered South African politics during the apartheid era. He obtained master's and doctoral degrees cum laude, specializing in Greek and Latin. At the age of 27 he was appointed lecturer, and a year later, professor in the Theological Faculty of the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk at the University of Pretoria. Geyser contributed to the first annotated edition (1953–1958) of the Bible in Afrikaans, founded the Christian Institute, and was the first South African to be elected as a member of Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas.
Johannes Hermanus Michiel 'Jan' Kock was a Boer general and politician.
The Reformed Presbyterian Church of Malawi was initiated by mission work of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, and was founded in 1985. There are more than 200 congregations and 7.000 to 10.000 members mainly in rural areas of central and southern Malawi. Since 2006 the Hersteld Hervormde Kerk of the Netherlands Restored Reformed Church supports this denomination.
The Volkskerk van Afrika or the People's Church of Africa is a Reformed denomination in South Africa, it is member of the World Communion of Reformed Churches.
The Reformed Churches in Namibia is a confessional Reformed church in Namibia. Reformed people come from Angola to Namibia in 1929. The Dorslandtrekkers were mostly Reformed people who had settled in Angola but later moved to Namibia. The Dorslandtrekkers were originally from Transvaal, South Africa, and migrated northwestward starting in 1874 in two large and one smaller group, starting the Humpata Reformed Church under the Rev. Jan Lion Cachet. Later in 1930 3 congregations were established. More farmers came and the church grew. Missionary work was started in 1969 under the Bushmans of the Gobabis region, Botswana. It has 2,757 members and 14 congregations, and adheres to the Apostles Creed, Nicene Creed, Heidelberg Catechism, Belgic Confession and the Canons of Dort.There's no women ordination. Official languages are Afrikaans, Bushman, Gobabis-Kung.
The Aranos Reformed Church was a congregation of the Reformed Churches in South Africa (GKSA) in Aranos in eastern Namibia. It left the denomination in 2016. With 16 confirmed and five baptized members at the end of 2014, it was the second smallest Reformed Church in Namibia, after the Karasburg Reformed Church, which had 12 confirmed and two baptized members. In 2015, the Aranos congregation grew to 19 confirmed and six baptized members.
The Potchefstroom Reformed Church (in Potchefstroom, North West, South Africa, is the oldest congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa in what was then the Transvaal or South African Republic. At its founding in March 1842, it was the 28th congregation in what would later become South Africa and the tenth outside of the Western and Southern Cape Synod.