THE CHRISTIAN AFRIKANERS - The Works of F. N. Lee

More documents

Recommendations

Info

will be published both in English and in Afrikaans. Its price will be approximately $8.00. It will beabout 300 pages long, and it will deal with flashes and fragments of a Reformed life view in action.The table of contents of this book just about to appear, reads as follows: (1) Christ -- Conservative,Revolutionary, Ascetic or What?; (2) Christ and the Religious Order of His Day; (3) Christ and theSocial Order of His Time; (4) Christ and the Political Situation of His Day; (5) The New Way ofReformation; (6) Sixteenth Century Models for Christian Involvement in the World; (7)Renaissance and Reformation -- Contemporaries, but Not Allies; (8) Christian Nationalism --Tracking Down Calvinism in South Africa; (9) Church Reformation -- the Permanent Call; (10)Out of Love For My Church -- On the Reformation of a Reformed Church; (11) Not of the World,but in the World -- the Calling of the Church in the World; (12) Church Mission or KingdomMission? -- the Kingdom Perspective in Our Missionary Endeavour; (13) The Significance of aBiblical View of Man for the Pastorate; (14) God's Hand in History; (15) A Total Onslaught --Revolutionary Warfare in Southern Africa; (16) The Relevance of a Calvinistic Cosmoscope to theBlack Peoples of Africa; (17) Panorama of Reformation in the Year of Our Lord 1980 -- a Surveyof World-Wide Reformed Faith and Action; and last, (18) Reformation or Revolution.I would like to close out the scenario of South African Afrikaner Calvinism in the last decade, byreferring to a passage from a work called, Christ the Triumphant One. This work appeared from thepen of Professor Dr. Kleynhans, Moderator of the National Assembly of the Reformed Church ofSouth Africa and Professor of Church History. Recently appointed such, he relinquished thepastorate to take up a position in an academic institution.Kleynhans writes: "The unstoppable progress of the Stone of Daniel two is very conspicuous. It hitsand pulverises the mighty image. The Stone which the builders refused, has become the Headstoneof the Corner -- and whosoever shall fall on this Stone, shall be broken. But on whomsoever It shallfall, It will grind him to powder. Psalm 2; Psalm 118; and Matthew 21.Yet this Stone is not only predestinated to destroy. At length, it becomes a Stone which covers thewhole earth. In the realm of the future, there is place for only one kingdom -- the kingdom of God.Just as scaffolding is broken down and disappears when a building is completed -- so too shall thehistory of the world lead to the day in which the kingdom of God shall cover the earth as the waterscover the sea!"Ten: Christian Afrikaners -- Forward into the Future!In this last lecture, I would like to deal with the eschatology of victory of the Afrikaner in the yearsahead. I have said previously that Zephaniah chapter three and verse ten is a significant text. In theNew American Standard version of the Bible, this is translated as follows: "From beyond the riversof Ethiopia My worshippers, My dispersed ones, will bring My offerings." Many have regarded thisas a prediction of the Afrikaner's contribution to the expansion of true Christianity worldwide --from South Africa, beyond the rivers of Ethiopia.Be that as it may, there is no doubt at all that the Afrikaner Calvinist, as indeed many anotherpeople, has much to offer the world -- even in today's atomic age. That is exactly what it is -- anatomic age! But then, books are appearing in South Africa today with titles underlining this veryfact.An important book published by Calvinists in South Africa recently, has the arresting title TheAtomic Age in Thy Light. The best faculties of nuclear research in South Africa have Calvinists astheir Chairmen. Much medical work, especially in the field of heart transplant technology -- as is
well known -- is being pioneered in that land. And so too processes of enriching uranium at a verycheap price are being pioneered precisely there.Professor Danie Strauss wants to have the Afrikaner take over where the Dutch have left off as theleaders of world Calvinism. He envisions South Africa becoming the new Geneva -- and importingand training foreigners in South Africa to go back to their lands as sturdy Calvinists and then tocalvinise their own countries.My own personal vision is exactly the opposite. South African Calvinism should becomecentrifugal, rather than remain centripetal! Rather than become a new Geneva, I think South Africashould become like the old Jerusalem. It should send forth the Law from Zion to the four corners ofthe earth. There it should combine the best of South African Calvinism with the best of the foreignCalvinism it meets or helps create. Then it should be the Non-South Africans living in thoseterritories farther afield who themselves take all of this. They alone can amalgamate it in the correctmix for their circumstances -- and perfect it for each individual country. In this way, all of us wholove the Lord and the doctrines of grace -- together work toward the Calvinistic conquest of thewhole world.In 1967 Dr. Rousas John Rushdoony wrote me in a letter from California: "I believe South Africa,although unfortunately now showing signs of drifting, is still more Christian than any other countryof today, and has a major contribution to make. South African Reformed believers are more awareof the basic issues of our time. Too many American Reformed thinkers are prone to sentimentalhumanism as they view social issues!"This year, 1980, the Presbyterian Church of Australia's Rev. Prof. Dr. Harold Whitney -- a manwith three earned doctorates -- wrote me a heart-warming personal letter. Whitney is an admirer ofboth Van Til and Rushdoony. He is also a man who has himself written that "the whispers ofCalvary must not preclude the thunders of Sinai."As retiring Chairman of the Department of Systematic Theology at Emmanuel College ofQueensland University, Whitney recently wrote to congratulate me on his General Assembly'sappointment of me as his successor. Significantly, I believe, he then added the following words:"I am personally looking forward to your coming among us because, among other reasons, of mylove for South Africa. Four times I visited this fascinating land on evangelistic work -- apart frommy visits to Germany, Britain and the United States several times. I visited South Africa twice in1968, once in 1969, once in 1970 -- and, as the enclosed document will show, Dr. Lee -- I had theprivilege of speaking in many Reformed churches."Well, the enclosed document that Dr. Whitney referred to was an account of his 1970 visit to SouthAfrica. I believe in this last lecture I can do no better than to take a few minutes to quote from thisletter here. For I believe it gives an accurate insight by a Non-South African, an impartial outsider,into the true condition of Calvinism in South Africa much better than a "biased" person such asmyself could do!Says Dr. Whitney: "I learned the value of face to face confrontation. This is a good New Testamentpractice. Paul knew the value of witnessing before Governors. I was able, therefore, to spend amost profitable hour and a half over morning tea with Dr. Vorster, brother to the Prime Minister ofSouth Africa and leader and Moderator of the General Assembly of the Reformed Church. It wasthrough Dr. Vorster's courtesy that I was able to speak in the Reformed Mother Church in CapeTown." That, by the way, is the oldest church in South Africa.
Page 1 and 2:
THE CHRISTIAN AFRIKANERSA Brief His
Page 3 and 4:
God richly bless the following lect
Page 5 and 6:
There have always been, and always
Page 7 and 8:
But the only one they both appeal t
Page 9 and 10:
Now Zuidema was a very great Dutch
Page 11 and 12:
Dutch churches at the Synod of Dord
Page 13 and 14:
station -- to help the Dutch ships
Page 15 and 16:
It is a country dedicated to freedo
Page 17 and 18:
1760 -- there was more and more dis
Page 19 and 20:
with the Dutch. Many moved farther
Page 21 and 22:
said: "The British have placed our
Page 23 and 24:
financed by White money. It is buil
Page 25 and 26:
Famous Boer Generals, left to right
Page 27 and 28:
Three: Unannihilated: the Resurrect
Page 29 and 30:
(who had arrived in the country onl
Page 31 and 32:
of success.I may add that White Sou
Page 33 and 34:
General Beyers felt that those text
Page 35 and 36:
Balfour Declaration. The gist of it
Page 37 and 38:
Africa; treks on into the land both
Page 39 and 40:
Four: The Eschatology of Victory in
Page 41 and 42:
ide -- to use the instrumentality o
Page 43 and 44:
Christian National Calvinist Public
Page 45 and 46:
through constitutional process it h
Page 47 and 48:
I guess the best way to describe Sm
Page 49 and 50:
He was followed after his assassina
Page 51 and 52: So the Scots came. I am going to sp
Page 53 and 54: the Reformed Church in South Africa
Page 55 and 56: ook on Hebrews. But his greatest wr
Page 57 and 58: At that point, Du Plessis enquired
Page 59 and 60: Yet quite apart from this high view
Page 61 and 62: One last point. There is a tremendo
Page 63 and 64: African Republic in 1902, the Cape
Page 65 and 66: One of the most important Calvinist
Page 67 and 68: Pellissier, who wrote on music and
Page 69 and 70: perspective -- even while he minist
Page 71 and 72: ever encountered by the Whites in S
Page 73 and 74: Now the United States does not need
Page 75 and 76: majority of the White citizens are
Page 77 and 78: Now you will not find in any of Sto
Page 79 and 80: Finally, Stoker argues that the so-
Page 81 and 82: This then brings Stoker to another
Page 83 and 84: This Brummer just referred to, is a
Page 85 and 86: Man was to rejoice in this nature (
Page 87 and 88: enhanced. For, in the present, man
Page 89 and 90: he declared, riddled with the ungod
Page 91 and 92: Van der Waal is a very brilliant So
Page 93 and 94: World War II when he was hiding fro
Page 95 and 96: The Professor of Philosophy -- or I
Page 97 and 98: glory.There are also Christian psyc
Page 99 and 100: Then there are Christian criminolog
Page 101: Massachusetts at Gordon- Conwell fo
Page 105 and 106: people in South Africa. The South A
Page 107 and 108: nature and of human culture (Prover
Page 109 and 110: The parousia of Jesus Christ will i
Page 111 and 112: more and more christianised. Later
Page 113: END
show all

THE CHRISTIAN AFRIKANERS - The Works of F. N. Lee

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?