1. Christianity is an Eastern faith, from Galilee and Judea, very soon reaching the Nile Delta and Egypt and from there speeding west along the coast and south to Nubia and Axum-Ethiopia. At the end of the fifteenth century the faith reached sub-Saharan Africa – Kongo, Mutapa and Mombasa. While Islam came by camel caravan – ‘ships of the desert’ – Christianity arrived by sailing ship: along the coastline and then, by way of canoe along the rivers and the lakes and from the south by ox-waggon, in each case mediated by groups of young African witnesses.

2. The Christian message as a power of motivation from ‘Beyond the Seas’ did not arrive alone. The proclamation of the Gospel was sabotaged by the powers of colonialism and race. The emerging Churches came to be seen as related to a political metropolis and to Western missionary societies. The identification of Western colonialism and Christian mission was even more accentuated by the concept of a ‘national mission’, representing the particular nationality of a colonial-imperial power, while other missions, from other countries and denominations were, presumably, beyond this privileged position.

Another factor was that of race, particularly in South Africa and other territories with a dominating European minority. Relationships between the races, within the Churches as well, came to be decreed by anonymous segregation and by the legal enactments of apartheid.