Church rules? The lines of ordentlikheid among Stellenbosch Afrikaners

Abstract

Ethnographic accounts of South African moral codes have mostly focused on so-called black and coloured areas, while the ideals and practices of white people have remained largely invisible and undiscussed. In the post-apartheid era, Afrikaners’ everyday religious practices as well as their ideas of decency have changed, as have the spatial boundaries of their communities. There has been a significant emancipation from the strict controlling practices of the Dutch Reformed and other Reformed churches. Many previously unacceptable practices, such as visiting Pentecostal churches, are now tolerated. Yet conceptions about the lyne van ordentlikheid [lines of decency] are still there, although drawn differently, and indicate the boundaries of moral communities. This article examines changing boundaries of ordentlikheid through religious shifts among urban, middle-class, white verligte [enlightened] Afrikaners. The study of white mainstream Christians is valuable for an understanding of the transformations that sociocultural boundaries, moral orders and new cultural identities are undergoing in the post-apartheid era.