Afrikaner Calvinism is a theoretical cultural and religious development among Afrikaners that combined elements of seventeenth-century Calvinist doctrine with a "chosen people" ideology similar to that espoused by proponents of the Jewish nation. A number of modern studies have argued that this gave rise to the Great Trek while serving to legimitise the subordination of other South African ethnic groups, thus laying the foundation for modern Afrikaner nationalism and apartheid. Dissenting scholars have asserted that Calvinism did not in fact play a significant role in Afrikaner society until the trauma of the Second Boer War, citing the fact that early settlers dwelt in isolated frontier conditions and lived much closer to pseudo-Christian animist beliefs than organised religion.