Education and segregation in a South African mission church: the merger of the Anglican church and the Order of Ethiopia, 1900-1908

Abstract

The aim of this article is to interrogate the links between church politics and education in the Cape Colony in a period of segregation. Educational activities were a central motif in the relationship between the Order and the CPSA. The analysis presented is based on the observation that both secular and religious training involve similar processes of instruction assimilation of knowledge, and assessment. Yet the practices of religious education and training have not received attention from South African historians of education, who have focuses almost exclusively on secular education. In the same way that secular education has been shown to be a mechanism for excluding people from social mobility in society, this article will show that religious education could equally operate as a gate-keeping mechanism that limited mobility of Africans in the structure of the church.