The development of theology at Stellenbosch from 1859-1919
- Authors: Thom, Gideon
- Date: 1990
- Subjects: Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk , Stellenbosch Theological Seminary
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:1215 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001544
- Description: This study seeks to give an exposition of the development of theology at the Stellenbosch Kweekskool from 1859 until 1919, a period that coincided with the formative years of Afrikaner nationalism. John Murray (1826-1882) was nurtured in evangelical Calvinism but received his theological training in 'moderate' Utrecht. As Calvinist he emphasized salvation by grace and Christian obedience, as evangelical, union with Christ, and as kenoticist he emphasized the relevance of the humanity of Christ. N.J. Hofmeyr (1827-1909) was converted under an evangelical Lutheran and received his training in Utrecht, in the heyday of Dutch ethical and German mediating theology. He was fascinated by the historical Jesus. In his view, the 'religion of Jesus' was not the moralistic one imagined by the modernists, but an experience of sonship, continually challenged by severe temptations. The central theme of his theology was the huiothesia, the sonship of Jesus being the prototype of our sonship. As he was the spiritual father of many generations of Stellenbosch students, his Christocentric emphasis and his doctrine of huiothesia played an important role in the development of NGK spirituality. Other themes in Hofmeyr's theology bore the marks of mediating theology: The idea that the conscience is the voice of God, the 'natural' compatibility between the human and the divine, the importance of experience in the theological enterprise and the idea that grace must accommodate itself to nature. J.I. Marais (1848-1919) and P.J.G. de Vos (1842-1931), who received part of their training in Scotland, were more conservative in theology than Hofmeyr. By the turn of the century De Vos has fully accepted scholastic Calvinism and premillenniaIism; Marais accepted premillennialism around 1914. The experiences of the Anglo-Boer War precipitated the close relationship between the Afrikaner and the NGK, and the lack of a strong doctrine of the church in Stellenbosch theology added to the blurring of distinctions between church and people. The national church of the Scots and Dutch traditions became the volkskerk of the Afrikaner. Important biblical dimensions of Murray and Hofmeyr's theology were neglected after Hofmeyr's death. The conviction that God revealed himself completely in the human Christ was weakened by fundamentalism and the tendency to see God's will in the history of the volk. Their eschatology - which expected great success for the gospel - was replaced by premillennialism, which expected only limited success for missions before the parousia. Hofmeyr's social gospel, which was applied to the problem of the 'poor whites', was gradually replaced by a negative view of the social relevance of the gospel, especially in racial matters. This gradual change of theological direction involved a growing sympathy with fundamentalism and Kuyperianism, but did not consist in a full revival of reformation theology
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- Date Issued: 1990
A holy people: a study in the ecclesiology of Andrew Murray
- Authors: Neethling, Johann Christiaan
- Date: 1975
- Subjects: Murray, Andrew, 1828-1917 , Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk , Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk van Afrika -- History , Nederduitse Gereformeerde Gemeente Worcester , Nederduitse Gereformeerde Gemeente Bloemfontein , Nederduitse Gereformeerde Gemeente Wellington , Theology, Doctrinal -- South Africa -- History , Church history
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Bachelor , BDiv
- Identifier: vital:1287 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013592
- Description: The thesis seeks to show Andrew Murray's growing understanding of what it meant to be the elect of God in contrast to other prevailing notions. In his confrontation with the Trekker communities, the majority of whom were rigid Calvinists, stressing a divine election based on the notions of biological and cultural identity, Murray found little of the holy behaviour which ought to characterize the people of God. The elect should be seen to be the elect by their fruits. Instead there was divisiveness, discrimination, party spirit and other forms of ungodliness. Faced with the immensity of the task in identifying the true Church and building God's people up in holiness, Murray began to sense the necessity of another 'dimension' within the Church's regular means of grace of preaching, the sacraments, and discipline. The revival of 1860, focussed Murray's attention in a new and vital way on the work of the Holy Spirit in breathing new life into the Church and in empowering believers to live lives pleasing to God. The 'indiscriminate' effects of the Holy Spirit's work convinced Murray that the Gospel and thus the Church was not the possession of the white colonist, Dutch or English, but that the black and brown man had an equal claim on the Gospel and as much right to become a member of Christ's Church. Murray's understanding of the Christian life as continual abiding in Christ by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit meant that the believer came to have the mind of Christ and to partake of His holiness. This holiness evidenced itself in the believer having Christ's concern for the lost. Mission, therefore, became this supreme end of the Church. The struggle with the forces of liberalism raised the new issue that unbelievers could no longer be simply 'heathen blacks' or English but most of all Dutch. The support of the civil courts of those disciplined by the Church brought the whole problem of ecclesiology to the fore and led Murray to the conclusion of the necessary separation of the Church from the State. Murray's discovery that in various ages, nations and Church traditions there were those with the same passionate desire for God' s holiness, led him into an increasing awareness of the catholicity of the Church. True holiness demanded the love and unity of all God's children. Murray's ecclesiology was a biblically-based one at a time when communities were beginning to be formed by other than biblical notions and principles and by a people who were trying to pack more into the notion of a people of God than Scripture gave warrant for. The emphasis for which Murray stood made for an ecclesiology that simply could not be confined.
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- Date Issued: 1975