Lufafa was a congregation of the Free Church of Scotland, under the superintendency of Rev. J. Dewar. Rev. Mlaba, then 55 years old, protested against the use of unordained persons for work requiring ordained persons. When his complaint was not heeded, he broke away in April 29, 1923. In January 1923, he had approached Rev. A. R. Smith of a newly established church in Pietermaritzburg, the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk van Natal (NHKN), for recognition and membership. (NHKN had broken away from the Nederduitse Gereformeerde Kerk.) Rev. Smith and Rev. Mlaba and their church councils agreed to cooperate, one as the mssion church, under the official name Zulu Hervormde Zending Kerk (ZHZK), and the other as the sending church. But in 1925 the NHK van Natal applied successfully to be incorporated into the Nederduitsch Hervormde Kerk van Afrika (NHK, cf. no. 2). However, the NHK would not accept the ZHZK as its mission church. In 1928 a promission lobby in the NHK formed its own mission society, the Nederduitsch Hervormde Sendinggenootskap, and established formal relations with the ZHZK until 1951, when the NHK accepted responsibility to do mission as a church. In 1948 a new name, the Bantoe Hervormde Kerk, was adopted. The church grew in Natal. In 1951 it was established in Pretoria. It also spread to the Orange Free State, and in the early ’60s it reached the Transkei. Around 1953 the training of ministers started under ad hoc conditions. In 1966 the training of ministers and evangelists continued under the Stofberg Teologiese Gedenkskool of the Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk. In 1977 a new constitution was adopted, and the name of the church changed to Hervormde Kerk in Suidelike Afrika. The church also declared itself open toallpeoples. This church can be considered the “black daughter church” of the Dutch Reformed Church (NHK, cf. no. 2).
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