Though at first allowed to hold services in French, they were eventually assimilated into the Dutch-speaking population and became members of the Dutch Reformed Church, which had a monopoly in territory controlled by the company.

An exception was eventually allowed for a Lutheran church in Cape Town (many of the company's employees were German).

The colony had expanded a long way beyond the Cape Peninsula in the preceding two centuries, both to the north and the east, and on the eastern frontier the Dutch farmers came into contact with Xhosa-speaking cattle herders.

The frontier farmers did not like the way the government in Cape Town handled the situation, and the ending of slavery in 1834 was another bone of contention.

Afrikaner Calvinism was developing a different worldview to that of the British rulers, and many farmers left the Cape Colony in the Great Trek during the 1830s and 1840s.

The Dutch Reformed ministers generally tried to discourage them and, as the Dutch Reformed Church was the established church of the colony, did not initially provide pastoral ministry for the emigrant farmers, who eventually formed several independent republics in present-day South Africa.

Because the NGK was seen by the trekkers as being an agent of the Cape government, they did not trust its ministers and emissaries, seeing them as part of the British Empire's attempts to annex the Boer Republics.

One result of the revival was that many young men felt called to the ministry, and a seminary was opened at Stellenbosch.

The NGK was thus no longer dependent on getting its clergy from overseas, and as most of the recruits to the ministry had emerged from the revival this was the dominant element.

One of its features was a kind of Reformed "Lent", between Ascension Day and Pentecost, a custom that eventually spread beyond the confines of the NGK.

The NGK expanded from the Cape Colony, but in Natal and the two inland republics it set up separate synods that were at first loosely federated but later developed a closer relationship.

Following the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902) the NGK played an important role in reconstruction and resisting the tendency of the British rulers to anglicise the Afrikaners.

[5] In 1986 during the General Synod the church changed its stance on apartheid and opened its doors to people of all races[6] (the Andrew Murray ministry within the Dutch Reformed Church, since its inception, had its doors open to people of different cultural backgrounds and ethnicities).

In recent years, there have been efforts at reuniting the various branches of South Africa's Dutch Reformed tradition.

[11] Traditionally, and certainly prior to the end of Apartheid, the NG Church held the view that homosexuality is a mental health issue or a sinful state of being.

The church recognises South African civil unions, but does not regard legal marriage between homosexuals as Biblical marriage – instead, the church regards legally married homosexuals as simply having a formalised, committed sexual relationship.

[17][18][19] Therefore, the current view on homosexuality of the NGK is: Progressive members of the clergy and laity have taken the denomination to court to restore the decision from 2015 and reject the reversal.

[26] The General Secretary Gustav Claasse told the press that, despite the court decision the church will hold to its 2016 official stance against same-sex marriage.

[28] The church believes that life begins at conception, and that using contraceptives that cause a fertilised ovum to be expelled is therefore also sinful.

[29] At the 1986 General Synod, a proposal was considered to draw up a list of exceptional cases in which abortion might be allowable.

By 1994, with the election of a new government and the adoption of a new constitution in South Africa, it became apparent that abortion on demand may be legalised, and the church was forced to re-examine and restate its stance.

[32] Media related to Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk churches in South Africa at Wikimedia Commons