The Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa (official title: Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk) bares its teeth indiscriminately at foxtrotting, modern bathing suits and free speech. Along with its two smaller sister communions, it has denounced Christmas celebrations as "heathen rites" and castigated South Africans, especially women, for smoking and drinking. At its last synod the church elders condemned Freemasonry, the equality of the sexes and the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights (as defying the "pattern of inequality" which God created).
Politically, the church has not been so fastidious. Claiming two-thirds of South Africa's 1,500,000...
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