The covenant - James A. Michener [623]
The first jolt came from a most unlikely source. Reverend Paulus van den Berghe, moderator of a group of French and Dutch Calvinists, came to South Africa to ascertain whether the rupture which had separated the mother church in Holland and the Afrikaners' church in South Africa could be repaired, and in the course of his investigations he asked permission to meet with the son of one of its principal architects. Marius, always eager for foreign contacts, agreed to have the distinguished theologian spend some days at Vrymeer, where in the gentlest manner Van den Berghe interrogated not only Marius, but also Frikkie and Jopie and then Daniel Nxumalo, home on vacation.
At the end of four days Van den Berghe knew something of conditions at Venloo from both the white and black points of view, and at the final session, to which Philip was invited and Nxumalo, too, he voiced a few of his tentative conclusions:
'What do you suppose the two biggest surprises were for me? Meeting two rugby players of international status and seeing for myself what sterling young men they are. I wish you good luck, Troxels, with your forthcoming games in Australia and New Zealand. The second big surprise was to find that I was on the farm once occupied, or shared, by Paulus de Groot, who was my hero when I was a lad. I was born the year he died, and how often I heard my parents talk about the heroic Dutchmanto us, Boers were always Dutchmen who held at bay four hundred thousand Englishmen. It was a moment of deep affection when I was allowed to place flowers on his grave.
'As to the purposes of my visit, it must be obvious that clergymen like me in The Netherlands and France are disturbed by the course your Dutch Reformed Church has been taking since you Afrikaners assumed control of the nation in 1948. It has become a handmaiden not of a religion, nor of the republic, but of a particular political party, and that's always regrettable. A church should be the handmaiden of Jesus Christ first, the entire society second, and to align it on the side of faction is dangerous.
'Concerning its preachments regarding apartheid, it would be improper for me to voice my personal judgments before the whole commission has had a chance to evaluate and temper them. But I must confess that I leave your country with a heavy heart. I had not realized you had grown so far apart from us. It will now be the duty of all to conciliate our differences.'
When he was gone, Frikkie said with ill-masked fury, 'This land has always been cursed by missionaries. That man's an agent of the World Council of Churches and I should have shot him for a spy.'
'Oh, Frik!' Mrs. van Doorn protested.
'I mean it. What did the foreign churches do in Rhodesia? They gave money to terrorists. And how did they spend it? Killing women and children and missionaries. Is that Christianity?'
Jopie joined in: 'You watch what he writes when he gets back to Holland!' And the Troxels were right, for when the commission's report appeared, it was a devastating attack on the South African church:
With mounting sorrow your committee must report that our Afrikaner brothers in the white Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa have strayed so far and so willfully from the path of Christian morality as evidenced in the preachings of Jesus Christ and St. Paul that reunion now between our church and theirs would be inadvisable and unproductive. Your committee therefore recommends unanimously that the present severance of affiliations be maintained until such time as the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa manifests a Christian concern in ending its support of the system of repression known as apartheid.
Saltwood was surprised at the fury with which the Troxels reacted to this censure: 'We're the polecats of the world, and damnit, if they come at us, we'll squirt in their eyes.'