Christianity: Missionaries in Africa

By: Modupe Labode

Source:

 Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition

Christianity: Missionaries in Africa

Christianity is an evangelizing religion and, as such, missionaries have been essential to the enterprise from its beginnings. As important as missions and missionaries are to African Christianity, one should not confuse the history of mission Christianity, or the history of missionaries, with the history of Christianity on the African continent. An active Christian community existed in Egypt from the earliest days of the religion. By the third century C.E.., Christian communities had spread throughout North Africa. From these communities, Christianity gradually spread to Nubia and Ethiopia. Monks and priests proselytized to non-Christians; converts evangelized to their friends and families.

European trade and conquest in the fifteenth century brought a new form of missionary activity to Africa. Portuguese, Dutch, and other European traders established small settlements along the coast of Africa to trade in commodities and people, who were sold into the transatlantic slave trade. European governments and trading companies often supported missionary activity by maintaining that part of their reason for being in Africa was to convert the non-Christian. The case of the Portuguese exemplifies the close relationship between crown and church. In the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), the pope recognized Portuguese claims to Africa. The crown was also responsible for attempting to convert the indigenous people to Christianity. Much of the missionary effort over the next two and a half centuries was conducted under Portuguese authority. The vast majority of missionaries at this time were Roman Catholic priests; many of them belonged to religious orders such as the Jesuits, Capuchins, and Franciscans.

Missionaries often attempted to convert the ruling elite based on the assumption that if the rulers were converted, the rest of the society would follow. These attempts met with varying degrees of success. Missionaries often alienated potential Christians by their criticism of African customs and their support of the slave trade. It was left to African Christians to generate religious-based critiques of slavery and the slave trade. Rulers were often reluctant to convert to Christianity because conversion often required them to renounce the traditional religions and practices, which were the source of their power and authority. In Ethiopia, the emperor and royalty considered themselves to be in little need of mission activity, because they were already Christians; they saw the Jesuits as a conduit for building alliances with Europeans. In West Africa, Portuguese clergy attempted to proselytize in the early kingdom of Benin and the Warri state, in the Niger delta. In the Mutapa state (in present-day Zimbabwe), the missionaries met with modest success. Missionaries also worked in Portuguese-African communities in Sierra Leone, Cape Verde, and Angola. Although some Africans became priests, missionary efforts were often hampered by the short supply of clergy—whether European or African.

One of the few states that adopted Christianity was the kingdom of the Kongo (in present-day Angola, Congo, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo). After encountering the Portuguese in the 1480s, the Kongo king converted to Christianity in 1491, and for the next several centuries the rulers of Kongo were Christian. Christianity initially served as a bridge between Kongo and Portugal, but by the end of the 16th century the relationship had deteriorated and the states were enemies. Part of the conflict arose from the effects of the slave trade in the region. Further, the Kongo state resented the ways in which the Portuguese controlled the supply of clergy and bishops to the region, and the Kongo tried to obtain clergy elsewhere. A Christian presence remained in the region into the 19th century, long after the state had dissolved. In Kongo, as in all areas in which Africans accepted Christianity, the local histories, religion, and politics set the framework in which people gave meaning to the new religion and integrated it into their society.

The Roman Catholic dominance of mission work lasted until the mid-1700s. With few exceptions, Protestants showed little interest in foreign mission work until the late eighteenth century, when a series of revivals helped spark interest in foreign missions among Protestants in the United States, Great Britain, and northern Europe. Church people formed new societies for the promotion of mission work. Clergymen and laymen from all levels of society volunteered to become missionaries. In general, women could go to the mission field only as the wives or other relatives of the male missionary. The number of Roman Catholic priests and nuns increased during the 19th century as orders were founded specifically for mission work.

Many of the missionaries during this time were inspired by humanitarian concerns; they linked the abolition of slavery with their cause. Some missionaries protested against slavery and other abuses to which African people were subjected. Many Western missionaries saw “civilizing” Africans and converting them to Christianity as an extension of humanitarianism. They saw African cultures as degraded and uncivilized, and many missionaries thought that Africans had no religion. Therefore it was part of the missionaries’ Christian duty to share the benefits of Western civilization and Christianity with Africans. This perspective meant that missionaries often were dismissive of African cultures and beliefs. In their view, Christianity was linked with Western cultural patterns. Missionaries therefore encouraged converts to adopt Western gender roles and family structure, clothing, literacy, and housing. Christianity was commonly linked with Western patterns of work, agriculture, and consumption. David Livingstone, the Scottish missionary who traveled widely in southern and Central Africa in the mid-nineteenth century, summarized this sentiment when he declared in 1857 that Africa needed “Christianity and Commerce.”

Like their predecessors, many missionaries attempted to convert African societies through the rulers, and thus change the entire society. Although relatively few African rulers converted to Christianity in the 19th century, several leaders invited missionaries to work within their polities. Moshoeshoe of the Sotho people used missionaries and mission stations as part of his strategy of state building. He used missionaries to negotiate with white settlers in southern Africa, and he also sent his sons to mission schools. In the kingdom of Buganda (in present-day Uganda), the rulers used Protestant and Roman Catholic Christianity, along with Islam and traditional religions, as factors within the complex politics of the state. Although rulers rarely converted to Christianity, other groups of people within society became associated with Christianity. Many of the early converts were somewhat marginal to the established order: young people, refugees, slaves, women. Not all converts were marginal, however. Ntsikana, a councilor to a Xhosa chief, was influential in bringing people to Christianity in South Africa in the early 1800s. He argued that Christianity did not require one to adopt Western culture, and his hymns became important expressions of African Christianity.

The West African colonies of Sierra Leone and Liberia were important centers of missionary activity. These colonies were established to provide homes for former slaves and captives; as was the case in other colonies, thriving indigenous communities lived there well before the settlers arrived. A group of British abolitionists, including former slaves, established Sierra Leone in 1792. Liberia was established by the U.S.-based American Colonization Society in the 1820s and became an independent state in 1847. Sierra Leone’s development illustrates the complex ways in which Christianity became part of the region’s religious landscape. The colony’s settlers included people of African descent from Great Britain, Canada, and Jamaica. Recaptives, Africans who had been captured into slavery but released by the British navy into Sierra Leone, were an important segment of the population. Many settlers were already Christian and they established Christian communities that became a base for further evangelization. Further, some settlers and recaptives became missionaries to other parts of Africa. The most famous of these missionaries was Samuel Crowther. Crowther had been captured into slavery as an adolescent and released into Sierra Leone. He converted and became an Anglican minister. Crowther then led a mission of Africans to the Niger delta in 1857. He was ordained a bishop of the Church of England in 1864—the first African Anglican bishop.

Some of the most active promoters of Christian missions were people of African descent from the Americas and Europe. These missionaries thought that Christianity was important to bring to Africa; they often expressed a sense of responsibility to their homeland. From the 1700s through the 1900s, people of African descent from the United States, Canada, and Europe worked as missionaries in Africa. Many of these missionaries were associated with predominately black churches that originated in the United States, such as the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AME), and the National Baptist Convention. Other African American missionaries were associated with predominately white churches.

In the last quarter of the nineteenth century, European powers undertook the rapid partitioning and colonization of Africa, a process often referred to as the Scramble for Africa. By 1902, Liberia and Ethiopia were the only independent states on the continent. Western missionaries’ reaction to imperialism varied greatly. A few missionaries actively helped European governments defeat African states. Other missionaries protested against abuses associated with colonial governments, but did not question the authority of these governments to colonize Africa. Many missionaries had grown frustrated with the strength of African polities and were convinced that Christianity could advance only when the authority of African states had been destroyed. It appears that most missionaries accepted colonialism and worked within the system. Some colonial governments attempted to forge close links with missionaries; both the Portuguese and Belgian governments privileged missionaries from their nations working in the colonies. Most missionaries and colonial governments worked closely together, although they did not have the same goals and were occasionally in conflict.

Colonial rule opened new opportunities for missionaries. The number of missionaries and mission societies working in Africa increased. Further, from the mid-1800s, most mission societies opened their ranks to single women, and work among African women thus became a higher priority. In addition to the previously established societies, new groups such as the Salvation Army, Seventh-day Adventists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses began work in Africa. In addition to evangelizing, many of these missionaries established schools, hospitals, and other institutions.

The number of adherents to Christianity increased steadily during this time. Some people were brought into contact with Christianity through work in the colonial economy, service in the military, or through studying at mission schools. Many people learned of Christianity from African catechists, preachers, friends, or family members. African Christians from areas as diverse as the Sudan and South Africa acted as missionaries to other African groups. Africans who had been educated in mission schools formed the core of an elite who began some of the earliest challenges to colonialism. The vibrant African Christian community discussed and debated Western missionaries’ attitudes toward colonialism, African culture, and civilization. African Christianity developed distinctive features, such as prayer groups, that missionaries could rarely control. African Christians often emphasized aspects of the religion that had special meaning for their situation, such as healing and prophecy.

Missionaries often emphasized the essential equality of all people and claimed that their goal was to establish indigenous, self-standing churches. Many missionaries saw the West as the model for a Christian community, however, and were reluctant to cede authority to Africans. This reluctance arose from a mix of doubt concerning the leadership capacity of Africans, bigotry, and racism. Western missionaries were often paternalistic in their relationship with African Christians. In practice this meant that there were very few Africans in positions of authority until well into the twentieth century. Those few Africans who had been in leadership positions were often deposed. The fate of the Niger delta mission illustrates this tendency. In the 1890s, white British missionaries took over the leadership of the station that had been established and run by Africans for over three decades.

In some areas, such as South Africa and coastal West Africa, Christians who were distressed with the attitude of missionaries broke away and formed Ethiopian churches. These churches were called Ethiopian in reference to Psalm 68:31:“Princes shall come from Egypt; Ethiopia shall stretch out her hands to God.” While these Ethiopian churches often had comparable theologies and practices to mission churches, Africans were in charge. Often Christians who remained in mission churches had the same sort of frustrations with the paternalism of missionaries as did those who formed their own congregations. During this time Africans formed other, prophetic, independent churches, which have often been called Zionist. These independent churches are an important aspect of Christianity but were not always directly related to missions.

Soon after World War II, the European powers recognized that their colonies would eventually become independent. Missionaries in turn acknowledged that the end of colonialism would have an impact on their work. These missionaries began to emphasize developing African leadership in the church hierarchy. This process was somewhat slow; for example, Africans were in the minority among Roman Catholic bishops until the late 1960s. In many cases the number of Western missionaries working in Africa continued to increase. Many mission societies also acknowledged that their work in Africa would have to change, and that the emphasis should be on building a distinctive, African church, instead of modeling the church on a Western form. In 1961 the International Missionary Council merged with the World Council of Churches; this controversial move indicated the extent to which mission churches should be considered an essential part of Christianity and not subordinate to the West. The Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) gave impetus toward creating a church that was more responsive to local needs and concerns.

As African colonies won independence, many missionaries were able to maintain good relations with new governments. The relationship between government and church within independent Africa is a related, but quite distinct, question. In states where the transition to independence was accompanied by violence or civil wars, missionaries tended to keep a low profile. In the southern African states of Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa, where racial discrimination against the African majority by the white minority was government policy, a few foreign missionaries, such as Michael Scott and Trevor Huddleston, spoke out against these practices.

Independence of African states has not meant the end of mission work. In the 1970s there were some calls by African Christians for a moratorium on foreign missions, so that Africans could gain control of the church. There continues, however, to be a substantial foreign mission presence on the continent. The composition of this group of missionaries has shifted. In a trend dating from the mid-twentieth century, the number of missionaries from North America has increased; most of these missionaries are associated with conservative or fundamentalist evangelical agencies. Generally, the work of missions in postindependence Africa has broadened to include economic and social development, in addition to education and evangelizing.

See also Colonial rule; Islam in Africa.

processed xml | source xml