| Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa | |
|---|---|
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| Classification | Protestant |
| Theology | Reformed |
| Polity | Presbyterian |
| Associations | World Communion of Reformed Churches |
| Region | South Africa, Namibia |
| Origin | 1994 South Africa |
| Branched from | Dutch Reformed Church |
| Congregations | 683 |
| Members | 1,230 000 |
The Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa (Afrikaans : Verenigende Gereformeerde Kerk in Suid-Afrika) was formed by the union of the black and coloured Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk mission churches.
In 1652 the Dutch formed a halfway station at the Cape, which was approximately halfway between the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies, and introduced slavery by whites.
Various foreign mission organisations started working in South Africa, which led to the formation of a number of denominations amongst those people who otherwise would have been excluded from the main churches, largely over issues of race.
This process motivated the Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk (NGK) in South Africa to start its own independent mission work.
In 1857 the NGK synod decided to have separate services for coloured (mixed race) members.
A separate church, the Dutch Reformed Mission Church (DRMC) was formed in 1881.
For blacks, the Dutch Reformed Church in Africa (DRCA) was formed in 1963.
In 1974 the synod of the DRCA decided in favour of church unity. In 1978 the DRMC decided likewise.
In 1986 the Belhar Confession – with its strong emphasis on unity, reconciliation and justice – was formulated and adopted by the DRMC.
In 1994 the DRMC and the DRCA united to form the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa (URCSA).
The joy which marked the formal unification of the Dutch Reformed Church in Africa (DRCA) and the Dutch Reformed Mission Church (DRMC) in 1994 to form the Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa (URCSA), should be seen against the background of a very difficult road on which church unity often appeared as being an unattainable goal.
Shortly after the Dutch formed a halfway station at the Cape in 1652, they introduced slavery. They started a school for slaves, with the purpose of transferring the Dutch language and culture. To encourage slaves to learn the Dutch language and prayers, they were rewarded with tobacco and brandy.
The Dutch East India Company, as a matter of policy, had all their slaves baptised. The Dutch Reformed Church (DRC) of the time had no organised mission activity, with the result that the baptism of slaves were left to the wilfulness of their masters. Baptised slaves also did not necessarily become members of the church.
In 1737 Georg Schmidt from the Moravian Church came to Cape Town to work amongst the Khoikhoi of the Overberg. Pressurised by the Cape church, he was forced to leave for Germany again after seven years. In the course of time various mission organisations from overseas started working in South Africa, which led to the formation of a number of denominations amongst those people who else would have been excluded from the church.
This process motivated the DRC to start its own independent mission work. This new development started at the church's first synod of 1824, when it decided to allow missionaries within its own ranks. This was clearly a move to get control over the way in which mission work would be done in years to follow. "The Afrikaner abhorred the liberal views of equality, freedom and the social integration of many missionaries (from the foreign mission societies)". [1] Although at its 1829 synod the DRC formally rejected discrimination on the basis of skin colour, it did not mean that in practice people of colour were not discriminated against, particularly at worship services and holy communion.
The DRC synod's decision of 1857 about separate services for coloured members "because of the weakness of some", has become notorious. The next logical step was the formation of a separate church. In 1881 representatives of five mission congregations assembled in Wellington near Cape Town for the first meeting of the DRMC. The DRC reserved the right to veto all decisions by this newly formed church. Also all its buildings had to be transferred on the DRC's name. The DRC decided to divide its mission work into a "home" and "foreign" mission. The first covered the Cape region, the second all the other provinces of South Africa, including Namibia. In each province separate churches for blacks and coloureds were formed. The Free State had its own mission church already in 1910.
In the Cape a separate "Dutch Reformed Bantu Church" was formed in 1951. All the coloured congregations eventually joined the DRMC, and the black congregations the DRCA. In 1974 the synod of the DRCA decided in favour of church unity. In 1978 the DRMC decided likewise. It took another 16 years for that ideal to be fulfilled. In the process, the Belhar Confession with its strong emphasis on unity, reconciliation and justice was formulated and adopted in 1986. This is still very much the motivating power by which the URCSA today lives.
The Uniting Reformed Church consists of approximately 1,230,000 members of them about 500,000 confessing members (excluding all those who are only baptised) and 683 congregations. Its name (which is in the continuous tense) and its logo (which is an incomplete circle) reflects the Church's emphasis on unity, and its hope for an even greater church unification within the family of God. [2]
The Church consists of hundreds of congregations, these congregations belong to the regional presbytery and several presbyteries form a Synod. The Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa consist of seven regional synods, namely Namibia, Northern synod, Southern synod (The whole Gauteng except Tshwane and parts of North & Mpumalanga), Phororo (Northern Cape), Cape, Kwazulu-Natal, Free State and Lesotho. Each region has its own moderamen, and every congregation is represented at these synods. Congregations are grouped together in presbyteries. At the general synod level congregations are only represented through their presbyteries. The general synod determines the Church's policy, and the regional synods see to it that these policies are reflected in their various activities.
In October 2018, the Southern Synod of the denomination voted to allow clergy to perform same-sex marriages as well as to ordain openly partnered LGBT ministers. [3]
From 6 to 8 November 2006, 127 representatives of the Reformed Church in Africa, The Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa and Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk met at Achterbergh near Krugersdorp to discuss the reunification of the family of DRC churches and how this can be realized.
The Dutch Reformed Churches Union Act Repeal Act 46 of 2008 lists one of its objectives as to 'remove obstacles in the unification process of the Verenigde Gereformeerde Kerk, Reformed Church of Africa and the Dutch Reformed Churches without legislative intervention.'
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 World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) was a fellowship of more than 200 churches with roots in the 16th century Reformation, and particularly in the theology of John Calvin. Its headquarters was in Geneva, Switzerland. They merged with the Reformed Ecumenical Council in 2010 to form the World Communion of Reformed Churches.
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.
The Belhar Confession is a Christian statement of belief written in Afrikaans in 1982. It was adopted as a confession of faith by the Dutch Reformed Mission Church (DRMC) in South Africa in 1986
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).
The Dutch Reformed Church in Africa was a Reformed denomination in South Africa. It was a mission church of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK) exclusively for black people, formed in 1963 during the apartheid era. Originally it was mainly in the Free State and northern Transvaal.
The Netherlands Reformed Churches was a conservative Reformed Protestant Christian denomination in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The denomination was formed in 1967 following a schism within the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands (Liberated).
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 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.
The Swaziland Reformed Church was founded in 1944 and become a congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in Africa in 1967. Later the Swaziland Missionary Board was formed to coordinate the missionary work of the Reformed Church in Swaziland. In 1989 Swaziland become a Regional Synod of the denomination. In 1991 the Swaziland Reformed Church became independent and has 20 communities within which it is working. The church was a member of the Reformed Ecumenical Council and later became a member of the World Communion of Reformed Churches.
The Dutch Reformed Church in Namibia is a Christian denomination in Namibia. It is one of ten synods of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK), and the only one outside South Africa. It covers all of Namibia except for the Eastern Caprivi Strip.
The Afrikaanse Protestantse Kerk, also known as AP Kerk, is a South African conservative Reformed Church federation with about 35,000 adherents. The federation consists of 210-240 congregations, mostly in South Africa, although the APK also includes 7 congregations in Namibia and one in London, England.
The South African Sendinggestig Museum was established in 1977 and is currently situated in the centre of Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa. It is a province-aided museum which receives support from the Government of the Western Cape Province.
Mary-Anne Plaatjies van Huffel was a South African pastor and academic. She was the first female minister to be ordained by a Dutch Reformed Church in Southern Africa.
The Brixton Reformed Church was a congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK) in the western suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa, which was absorbed along with the Johannesburg West Reformed Church (NGK) in 1993 into the new Vergesig Reformed Church. Brixton's centrally located building continues to serve the merged congregation, which has since acquired the Langlaagte Reformed Church as well as the Crosby West Reformed Church. Around 1985, the Cottesloe Reformed Church was also absorbed into the original Brixton congregation. Around 2014, Vergesig changed its name to Brixton Church.
The Johannesburg Reformed Church was the first congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK) to be founded in Johannesburg on August 14, 1887. All the congregations on the Witwatersrand stem from it, but by the 2010s, the NGK yearbook recorded only 90 in its ward which had long ceased to operate independently.
The Parkhurst Reformed Church was a congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK) that was active from 1944 to 1996 in the Johannesburg suburb of Parkhurst.
The Turffontein Reformed Church was a congregation of the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK) in southern Johannesburg, Transvaal. It was founded in 1906 and for years had a large membership, at times exceeding 3,000.
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