Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:07:07.316Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Mission History in Africa: New Perspectives on an Encounter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2014

Robert Strayer
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In recent years, the study of mission history has achieved a remarkable vitality, partly owing to the ready availability of material but deriving more fundamentally from a growing integration with the major thrusts of contemporary African historiography. It would seem appropriate at this point to attempt a “progress report” on these accomplishments and to suggest some possible directions for further investigation.

From its inception, mission history has paralleled rather closely the larger tendencies of African history generally. Formal examination of the subject was initiated by missionaries and their supporters and gave rise to what might be called the metropolitan-ecclesiastical school of mission history. Focused on European strategies for the planting of Christianity in Africa and on the heroic missionary efforts to implement these plans, this literature hardly spoke to the theme of encounter at all. In this respect, it resembled the early colonial history which saw Africa as a stage on which Europeans of all kinds played out their interests and their fantasies.

Taking vigorous exception to this view of the African past was what might loosely be called the nationalist perspective in African historiography, which emerged strongly in the 1950s and the 1960s. In consonance with this new emphasis on African initiative, historians of mission activity began to probe the ways in which African perceptions and reactions conditioned the pattern of mission expansion, the extent to which evangelization was an accomplishment of African catechists rather than European missionaries, and the kinds of protests that were generated against mission policy and attitudes.

Type
Research Article
Information
African Studies Review , Volume 19 , Issue 1 , April 1976 , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Ajayi, J.F.A. (1965) Christian Missions in Nigeria, 1841-1891. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Ajayi, J.F.A. and Ayandele, E.A.. (1974) “Emerging Themes in Nigerian and West African Religious History.” Journal of African Studies 1 (Spring): 1–39.Google Scholar
Anderson, J.E. (1970) The Struggle for the School. Nairobi: Longman.Google Scholar
Anderson, W.B. (n.d.) “Development of Leadership in Protestant Churches in Central Kenya.” Unpublished paper.Google Scholar
Atieno-Odhiambo, E.S. (1973) “A Portrait of the Missionaries in Kenya before 1939.” Kenya Historical Review 1: 1–14.Google Scholar
Axelson, S. (1970) Culture Confrontation in the Lower Congo. Falköping: Gummessions.Google Scholar
Ayandele, E.A. (1966) The Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Beidelman, T.O. (1974) “Social Thought and the Study of Christian Missions.” Africa 44 (July): 235–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brokensha, D. (1966) Social Change in Larteh, Ghana. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Brown, P. (1971) The World of Late Antiquity. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Cairns, H.A.C. (1965) Prelude to Imperialism. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Channock, M.L. (1972) “Development and Change in the History of Malawi,” pp. 429–46 in Pachai, B. (ed.), The Early History of Malawi. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Daneel, M.L. (1971) Old and New in Southern Shona Independent Churches. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
Ekechi, F.K. (1972) Missionary Enterprise and Rivalry in Igboland, 1857-1914. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Fernandez, J. (1972) “Fang Representations under Acculturation,” pp. 3–48 in Curtin, P. (ed.), Africa and the West. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Hallden, E. (1968) The Culture Policy of the Basel Mission in the Cameroons, 1886-1905. Lund: Berlingska Boktryckeriet.Google Scholar
Hopkins, R.F. (1966) “Christianity and Socio-Political Change in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Social Forces 44 (June): 555–62.Google Scholar
Horton, R. (1970) “A 100 Years of Change in Kalabari Religion,” pp. 192–211 in Middleton, J. (ed.), Black Africa. London: The Macmillan Company.Google Scholar
Horton, R. (1971) “African Conversion.” Africa 41 (April): 85–108.Google Scholar
Isichei, E. (1969) “Ibo and Christian Beliefs.” African Affairs 68 (April): 121–34.Google Scholar
Isichei, E. (1970) “Seven Varieties of Ambiguity: Some Patterns of Igbo Response to Christian Missions.” Journal of Religion in Africa 3: 209–27.Google Scholar
King, K.J. (1971) Pan Africanism and Education. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Lagergren, D. (1970) Mission and State in the Congo. Lund: Gleerup.Google Scholar
Leys, N. (1973) Kenya. London: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Linden, I. (1974) Catholics, Peasants and Chewa Resistance in Nyasaland, 1889-1939. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lonsdale, J.M. (1970) “Political Associations in Western Kenya,” pp. 589–638 in Rotberg, R. and Mazrui, A. (eds.), Protest and Power in Black Africa. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Low, B A. (1968) “Converts and Martyrs in Buganda,” pp. 150–64 in Baeta, G. (ed.), Christianity in Tropical Africa. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Markowitz, M.D. (1973) Cross and Sword. Stanford: Hoover Institute Press.Google Scholar
Mitchell, R.C. (1970) “Religious Protest and Social Change,” pp. 458–96 in Rotberg, R. and Mazrui, A. (eds.), Protest and Power in Black Africa. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Murphree, M. (1969) Christianity and the Shona. New York: Humanities Press.Google Scholar
Murray, J. (1970) “Interrelationships between Witchcraft Eradication Movements and Christianity in Central Africa.” Unpublished paper.Google Scholar
Muzorewa, F.D. (1975) “Through Prayer to Action: The Rukwadzano Women of Rhodesia,” pp. 256–68 in Ranger, T.O. and Weller, J. (eds.), Themes in the Christian History of Central Africa.Google Scholar
Ogot, B.A. (1972) “On the Making of a Sanctuary,” pp. 122–35 in Ranger, T.O. and Kimambo, I. (eds.), The Historical Study of African Religion.Google Scholar
Pauw, B.A. (1960) Religion in a Tswana Chiefdom. London: International African Institute.Google Scholar
Peel, J.D.Y. (1967) “Religious Change in Yorubaland.” Africa 37 (July): 292–306.Google Scholar
Ranger, T.O. (1971) “Christian Independency in Tanzania,” pp. 125–45 in Barrett, D. (ed.), African Initiatives in Religion. Nairobi: East African Publishing House.Google Scholar
Ranger, T.O. (1972) “Missionary Adaptation of African Religious Institutions: The Masasi Case,” pp. 221–51 in Ranger, T.O. and Kimambo, I. (eds.), The Historical Study of African Religion.Google Scholar
Ranger, T.O. (1975) “The Mwana Lesa Movement of 1925,” pp. 45–75 in Ranger, T.O. and Weller, J. (eds.), Themes in the Christian History of Central Africa.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ranger, T.O. and Kimambo, I. (eds.). (1972) The Historical Study of African Religion. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Ranger, T.O. and Weller, J. (eds.). (1975) Themes in the Christian History of Central Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Read, M. (1971) “The Ngoni and Western Education,” pp. 346–92 in Turner, V. (ed.), Colonialism in Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Salamone, F. (1975) “Continuity of Igbo Values after Conversion.” Missiology 3 (January): 33–44.Google Scholar
Schapera, I. (1960) “Christianity and the Tswana,” pp. 489–503 in S., and Ottenberg, P. (eds.), Cultures and Societies of Africa. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Schilling, D. (1972) “British Policy for African Education in Kenya, 1895-1939.” Ph.D. dissertation: University of Wisconsin.Google Scholar
Schoffeleers, M. (1975) “The Interaction of the M'Bona Cult and Christianity, 1859-1963,” pp. 14–29 in Ranger, T.O. and Weller, J. (eds.), Themes in the Christian History of Central Africa.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Southall, A. (1961) Social Change in Modern Africa. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Spencer, L. (1973) “Defense and Protection of Converts.” Journal of Religion in Africa 5: 107–26.Google Scholar
Steele, M. (1975) “With Hope Unconquered and Unconquerable: Arthur Shearly Cripps, 1869-1952,” pp. 152–74 in Ranger, T.O. and Weller, J. (eds.), Themes in the Christian History of Central Africa.Google Scholar
Strayer, R.W. (1973) “Missions and African Protest,” pp. 1–37 in Protest Movement in Colonial East Africa. Syracuse: Program of Eastern African Studies.Google Scholar
Tanner, R. (1967) Transition in African Belief. Mary knoll: Maryknoll Publishers.Google Scholar
Temu, P. (1972) British Protestant Missions. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Turner, P. (1971) “The Wisdom of the Fathers and the Gospel of Christ.” Journal of Religion in Africa 4: 45–68.Google Scholar
Vansina, J. (1973) Review of Culture Confrontation in the Lower Congo in Africa 43 (January): 85–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weinrich, M.A. (1975) “An Aspect of the Development of the Religious Life in Rhodesia,” pp. 218–37 in Ranger, T.O. and Weller, J. (eds.), Themes in the Christian History of Central Africa.Google Scholar
Wright, M. (1971) German Missions in Tanganyika, 1891-1941. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar