The Dutch Reformed Church and the poor white problem in the wake of the first Carnegie Report (1932) : some church-historical and theological observations

Abstract

This article focuses on some of the events leading to the first Carnegie Report (1932) and the way the Dutch Reformed Church responded in its wake to the so-called poor white problem. Special attention is given to a National Congress (Volkskongres) that was held in Kimberley in October 1934, and that was immediately followed by a church conference. The article also refers to some earlier conferences that became precursors to the Carnegie report and the subsequent Kimberley conferences. In addition, the article makes some remarks regarding the significance of the Kimberley conferences of 1934 as a response to the Carnegie report of 1932 and the cumulative experience of the poor white problem in the previous decades. Given the fact that the 1930s were also a period in which a form of neo-Calvinism found a stronger foothold within the Dutch Reformed Church, the last section of the article offers some brief comments on aspects of the theological discourse surrounding the role of the church in caring for the poor.