Piety versus Orthodoxy

This project explores the relationship between two very different types of theology that have characterized theological thinking in the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa during the past 150 years: mystical theology reflecting on the assumptions underlying the personal piety of believers and confessionalism aimed at defending orthodox doctrine. The interaction between these two types of theology will be analysed in the light of two great theological controversies in South Africa: The controversy between modernism and personal mysticism in the 1860s and the controversy in the 1920s between Johannes du Plessis and the confessionalism that became dominant the Dutch Reformed Church since about 1920.