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

One of the most important Calvinist educationalists in South Africa, is the aged Prof. Dr. J. ChrisCoetzee. He has written many important books -- First Principles in Our Calvinistic Education andNourishment; Calvinism and Education and Education and Sex. He was Professor of Education atthe University of Potchefstroom.There is also the Rector of the University of Potchefstroom, Professor Hennie Bingle. His booksinclude: National Culture and the Future; Education and Training in the Kingdom of God onEarth; and The University in the Crucible. (I am giving you the English equivalents of theAfrikaans titles of these never-translated books.)There is also Professor Dr. M.T. van Loggerenberg, Head of the Department of Education at theOrange Free State University, who has written many manuals in the field of Christian education.My friend Dr. Manie Malan wrote his doctoral dissertation on a critical Calvinistic examination ofthe existentialistic educational methodology of Professor Oberholzer. Other Afrikaner friendsinclude: Prof. Dr. Henry Stone and Prof. Dr. Piet Heiberg -- the Professors of Educationrespectively at the Transvaal Teachers' Training College on the Witwatersrand, and at the (Black)University of the North near Pietersberg.So then, we are seeing the further development of education. In 1975, the University ofPotchefstroom for Christian Higher Education convened and hosted the world's first InternationalConference of Calvinistic Higher Academicians. At their own expense -- the University's expense,not the South African Government's expense -- delegates were flown in from some nineteencountries, including six or seven from the United States (of which I was one). We met there forsome two weeks, discussing problems and approaches anent the extension of Calvinism at theuniversity level in our several countries.We had people there from England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, the United States, Canada,Korea, Japan -- and most of the Black countries in Africa south of the Sahara. It was quite ameeting, and it went very well indeed. This led to the Second international Conference, which washeld some years after that in Grand Rapids. As a result of that, one would hope that the outreachwill continue into all of the areas of the world.The chief problem that faces South Africa in the calvinisation of the educational institutions of itspeoples is, of course, the very large non-Christian element among the population (once you leavethe White and the Coloured groups). The Black people of South Africa constitute at least 65% ofthe total population. Perhaps at least half of them are still unbaptized pagans.Then you have a very large and influential slab of Whites who are Jews. You also have your Indianpopulation, only 3% of whom have ever been baptized. Most of them are Hindus, and the rest areMoslems. There is also a very strongly Islamic Malay group. You can just imagine the difficultiesof trying to expand a National Educational System, utilising the languages of these variousdifferent groups rather than utilising Afrikaans. Calvinism too meets with some resistance fromthese people -- many of whom pay not even lip service to any form of Christianity.There are also problems of idolatry. Thus, permission was granted to the Hindu population toestablish its own Chair of Theology at the Indian University in Durban. This was finally acceded toby the Government, but the Reformed Churches were furious. Some of them accused theGovernment of compromise, in a Christian Republic, to allow for a training centre for HinduTheology to be set up in a so-called Christian country -- even only for that portion of the country'sinhabitants that are still Hindus.You see the tension there. It creates a very big problem. The short-term way to resolve it is not