This article looks at the history of the relationship between the white Afrikaans-speaking churches of South Africa and the National Party (NP) by documenting one area where party and church had a special common interest: extramarital miscegenation and interracial marriage. Using synod records and official party records, the article shows, over a long period, how shifting policy positions on the miscegenation question elucidate the changing nature of the broader relationship between party and church. The article focuses on the largest of the Afrikaans-speaking churches, the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk (Dutch Reformed Church or NGK). Although the NGK had condemned marriages between whites and Africans as early as 1817, it was only after Union in 1910 that the Afrikaans churches became more vocal about miscegenation. The 1948 election results gave the Afrikaans churches what they wanted: a ban on mixed marriages was central to the Malan government’s programme. In 1986 the NGK general synod grudgingly permitted solemnizing racially mixed unions. By that time, however, NGK support for repealing the antimiscegenation laws hardly mattered. Notes, ref.
