The Kotzé Case

The Kotzé Case

Publications & Reports

Bleek reviews the controversial Kotzé case in which Johannes Jacobus Kotzé, the Minister of Darling, was expelled by the Synodical Commission following their rejection of his Heidelberg Catechism. As the Right Reverend Moderator of the Cape Synod, Andrew Murray chastised him for refusing to preach from question 60 of the Catechism, which Kotzé felt was in error. The Synod called his refusal to retract heretical. The Synod's decision to expel Kotzé was not unanimous.

Printed newsprint glued on paper

23/04/1864

Two cut out columns of newsprint text, positioned vertically parallel, pasted onto a plus-sized A4 unlined sheet with visible warping. "The Kotzé Case" is subsequently handwritten onto the mount/paper backing.

An original cutting of a Victorian article (no thematic title included in the cut out) by WHI Bleek. Published in Het Volksblad on Saturday, April 23rd, 1864. The Minister of Swellendam was likely William Robertson (van Tonder, 2017: 62). Andrey Murray jnr is the DRC Minister at Cape Town. Dammes Huet is likely the relevant DRC Minister of Maritzburg. The court proceedings for Kotze v Murray ran from August 23rd to September 2nd 1864. Bleek's August 25th, 1864 article concerning the actual case is not included among the cuttings. This case points to a schism in the DRC between the orthodox and "liberal", reformist theologians (preceeded by the Liberal Struggle of the 1850s). Kotzé would later sue the Dutch Reformed Church in a civil court for unjust expulsion.