Moral Radicals: Afrikaners and their Grassroots Ecumenism After Apartheid

Abstract

This article sheds light on grassroots ecumenism by pursuing a largely neglected interest in the participation of Afrikaners, from the late apartheid period to the present, in far-reaching religious and social change in South Africa. The account comprehends an apparent paradox. The more Afrikaners have sought to be inclusive, reaching across differences towards some consensus (humanitarian if not doctrinal), the more strongly and intimately has conflict among them intensified. In their struggles, an old, once formidably entrenched Christian public culture has been profoundly questioned. Now challenged by counterpublics concerned about racism and inequality, that Christian public culture is still being reconstructed, if somewhat fitfully, in ways that are deliberately reasoned and morally passionate. Based on long-term anthropological fieldwork, the present analysis shows where and how grassroots ecumenism emerged in various forms in tandem with the institutional ecumenism that was once banned among Afrikaners by their dominant church, the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk (NGK) or Dutch Reformed Church.