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Publications & Reports

Bleek thinks the proceedings at Ceres and Richmond prove the need for the Church Defence Association to defend the liberal minority from the tyranny of the orthodox clerical majority. The Supreme Court has subsequently declared the Synodical Commission's sentences against the Minister of Darling, Johannes Jacobus Kotzé, and the Minister of Hanover, Thomas François Burgers, illegal and void. Despite the Tulbagh Presbytery's refusal to allow certain rights to Kotzé, the nature of events moved the court to abstain from greater stringency. And now, the Synod and Graaff-Reinet Presbytery again refuse to allow Messrs Kotzé and Burgers certain rights. Bleek feels this contravenes the faith's decaloguic first principles (the Ten Commandments). Kotzé, at Ceres, refused to abandon his right to sit as a member and proved it impossible for the Presbytery to sit without him (which it did for two years). Burgers left his Presbytery "voluntarily" (an enforced absence) on the order of the new Præses. Therefore, the Graaff-Reinet Presbytery illegally violated the Supreme Court's order. There is friction over institutional authority and purview on grey areas overlapping church law (governing the church polity) and secular law, with internal church politics polarising Dutch Reformed clergy into orthodox and liberal factions.

Printed newsprint glued on paper

28/10/1865

One cut out column of newsprint text, positioned vertically, pasted onto a plus-sized A4 unlined sheet with visible warping. No title was subsequently handwritten onto the mount/paper backing.