Science in Christian Perspective
James 0. Buswell, III, M.A.
From: JASA 6 (September 1954): 21-22.
Malan publishes statement on
for U. S. Reformed Fellowship

Science in Christian Perspective
James 0. Buswell, III, M.A.
From: JASA 6 (September 1954): 21-22.
Malan publishes statement on
for U. S. Reformed Fellowship
In December, 1953, a group of ministers in the Christian Reformed denomination in Grand Rapids, through the editor of the Reformed Fellowship magazine Torch and Trumpet, sent a letter to Dr. Daniel F. Malan, Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, himself an ordained minister in the Dutch Reformed Church, inviting him to write a statement on the apartheid policy. Since the United States and Canada press have been so against apartheid it was felt that by this means both sides could be fairly evaluated and better understood by those of Reformed persuasion.
It is to the credit of the Editorial Committee of the Reformed Fellowship that they have thus achieved what, it seems, no other publication in this country has been willing or able to do, namely, to publish Dr. Malan's own views on apartheid.
Malan's response, a letter to the editor, John H. Piersma, is published in the April-May, 1954 issue of Torch and Trumpet.1
Hardly any explanation need be made regarding the description and present significance of the apartheid policy since our newspapers have been continuously reporting the social and legislative details of the program ever since before Dr. Malan became Prime Minister of the Union in 1948. Nevertheless, in order to better appreciate some of the complexities of the problem, it is necessary to examine, however briefly, some of the details relevant to an informed, Christian appraisal.
The Dutch settlers arrived in South Africa in 1652. When the British finally took over the Cape in 1814, they found themselves the newcomers amidst a population of about 30,000 predominantly Dutch natives with a tradition of over 160 years already behind them. The second generation citizens had no more idea of Holland as their homeland than the descendants of the Pilgrims had of England by the time of the Revolutionary war!
This is one of the vital aspects of the picture in South Africa today: the nationalistic and linguistic division between the Europeans themselves.
The rest of the picture of racial complexity in the
Union is better known. Of its more than twelve and
one-half million population, the racial composition,
according to a recently published survey,
The Peoples of South Africa,2 is
Cape Malays.......... 62,602
Coloured (mixed) 1,016,019
Let us look at a few of Dr. Malan's statements upon which the thinking of the a