ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a historical context that will demonstrate the ambivalent relationship between Christianity and apartheid in South Africa. It begins with an examination of apartheid. In 1652 the Dutch East India Company (VOC) established an outpost at the Cape of Good Hope to supply provisions for the ships coming on trade missions from Europe to Java, present-day India. Dutch pastors and missionaries often held the position that the VOC was there to service the ships, while the Christians were there to service the sailors' souls. British colonial rule expanded control over the Cape Colony, which resulted in a clash between British imperialism and Afrikaner nationalism at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Though the British settlers dominated South Africa economically and militarily, they were unable to establish long-term political control. The first Christian church in present-day South Africa was erected by Portuguese Catholics who arrived with Dias in 1501.
