| Summary: | After ten years of democracy there is still hope that one denomination for the Family of th e Dutch
Reformed Churches can be achieved. At the moment the process has just about come to a standstill
and it is threatening to disintegrate. According to estimation only one of these kinds of studies has been done. This was done from a Theological inste ad of a Social-Psychological point of view. The aims of this study were achieved by gathering data from ân number of respondents in the different denominations of the Family of Dutch Reformed Churches in the Mangaung area. Six churches from the Dutch Reformed Churches N=104 (46, 6%), as well as the United Reformed Church N=47 (21, 1%) were used and the remainder of the respondents came from five Dutch Reformed Churches
in Africa N=72 (32, 3%). A Biographical questionnaire as well as the Attitude towards Church Unification Scale was used. The influence of different variables such as language, gender, age, marital status as well as church activities on the attitudes of church members towards church
unification was investigated. Multivariate Tests of Significan ce was used. Statistical analysis
concluded that members of all the different denominations of the Dutch Reformed churches had a
positive attitude towards church unification throughout the different denominations. The variable found to have the greatest in fluence on the attitude of church members was language. The other variables did not yield statistical significant differences toward church unification.
It is one of the strangest twists of logic that it sometimes seems as if the Christian faith are used as the strongest tool to divide rather to bring together and reconcile people onto Jesus. In this study two research questions were posed. Firstly, what are members of the Dutch Reformed Family of
Churchesâ attitude towards church unification? Secondly, are there statistical significant
differences between members of the Dutch Reformed Family of Churchesâ attitude toward church
unification regarding home language, level of education as well as monthly income? A total of 223 respondents were included which consisted of 104 (46,6%) Dutch Reformed Church members, 72
(32,3%) DRC in Africa members and 47 (21,1%) Uniting Reformed Church members. The Attitude
towards Church Unification Questionnaire was utilized. Statistical analysis concluded that
members of the Dutch Reformed Churchesâ had a positive attitude towards church unification
throughout the different denominations. The variable found to have the greatest influence on the attitude of church members was home language. Monthly income of the household was also
significant on the 5% level, while level of education were not found to have a statistical significant influence on peopleâs attitude towards church unification.
|
|---|
