muckefuck | Those fissiparous Protestants! (Reply)

My modest passive knowledge of Afrikaans was put to the test today. I learned that what I thought was a single sect, the Dutch Reformed Church, is really at least three: de Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk, de Nederduitse (lit. "Low German") Hervormde Kerk, en de Nederduitse Gereformeerde [another word for "Reformed"] Kerk. (Just to keep things simple, the first was formerly known as the Gereformeede Kerk in den Nederlanden.)

It gets better: The two "sister-churches" (as our author calls them) in the Transvaal, the Nederduits Hervormd and Nederduits Gereformeerd, united in the 19th century to form the Vereenigde ("United") Kerk, but that ended in tears. The Hervormde Kerk broke free (again?) and the remainder (near as I can tell) eventually joined up with the Gereformeerde Kerk in Suid-Afrika--which, for all I know, is in communion with Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk or hangs out at their synods or something.

It's things like this that make you wish the Counter-Reformation had been just a little more effective. How does