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Social Theory and the Study of Christian Missions in Africa1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2012

T. O. Beidelman
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Extract

In the past anthropology was concerned with alien, exotic societies such as Indians, Africans, and Pacific Islanders. Today it is in vogue to do the anthropology of modern societies. Abroad this is termed the study of nation-building and development; at home it becomes the study of various sub-cultures with attention towards ethnic minorities and deviant groups rather than upon the more powerful and prominent segments of our society. Anthropologists tend to neglect those groups nearest themselves, and in the scurry to conduct relevant research, a broad area of great theoretical interest has been passed by. Almost no attention was ever paid by anthropologists to the study of colonial groups such as administrators, missionaries, or traders. Today we can read anthropological studies of the impact of such groups upon native populations, but the focus of such work dims with the colour line. Thus, an anthropologist has studied the machinations of the members of a Nigerian emirate but not the tactics of the British Resident and his staff. Another applied potted Weberian bureaucratic theory to Soga local government but neglected to discuss the British district officers in the same chiefdom. Another asked how Christian Tswana behaved, but not about those missionaries who had converted them. Anthropologists may have spoken about studying total societies, but they did not seem to consider their compatriots as subjects for wonder and analysis.* In the studies of Christianity in Africa, consideration was mainly in terms of the relations of the convert to his traditional society, to the process of social change, or sometimes to the development of native separatist churches. It never included the missionaries who had made the conversions or described everyday affairs at the mission station, clinic, or school.

Résumé

LA THÉORIE SOCIALE ET L'ÉTUDE DES MISSIONS EN AFRIQUE

En principe ce sont les historiens, les hommes de sciences politiques et les économistes, intéressés dans les changements sociaux, qui se sont occupés de l'étude des sociétés coloniales. Apres la disparition de la plupart des systèmes formels de colonialisme, même cet intérêt académique et borné s'est beaucoup affaibli. Actuellement, parmi les historiens on s'apercoit d'une renaissance d'intérêt pour les missions chrétiennes aux colonies, mais la plus grande partie de leurs travaux ne sont que des récits historiques auxquels manque une compréhension de la théorie sociale. II est à remarquer et à regretter qu'aucun anthropologiste ceuvrant dans le domaine social n'ait montré d'intérêt en de telles études, car en se restreignant à un seul point de vue du problème des races et de la culture dans ses analyses des valeurs, des croyances et des organisations, l'anthropologiste a désespérément borné les résultats de ses recherches, notamment en ce qui traite des changements sociaux.

Les sociétés coloniales manifestent maintes qualités qui ne différent que peu de celles de la plupart des grandes organisations modernes. Dans les deux cas, un gouffre semblable sépare les administrateurs-chefs des masses contrôlées, et il existe du ressentiment, de l'exploitation et un manque de communication. L'histoire coloniale nous offre une richesse de matière, en grande partie negligée, dont on pourrait obtenir des éclaircissements sur nos difficultés sociales actuelles, nonpas seulement dans les pays sous-développés mais aussi dans les pays métropolitains. Cet article-ci nous présente quelque-unes de ces questions en ce qui concerne la relation entre des variantes culturelles et des formes de structure sociale et de changement. Bien qu'ils soient parmi les sujets les plus négliges dans ce grand champ de la recherche coloniale, les études des missions, peut-être plus que les recherches dans les domaines économique et politique, illustreraient clairement le dilemme fondamental de la vie moderne et sociale. C'est a dire, Finsucces des valeurs declarees et celui d'une perspective de ce monde pour fournir une base significative dans l'action sociale. C'est parce que les missionnaires, même plus peut-être que les politiciens, retiennent des conceptions erronées et d'eux-mêmes et de leurs convertis que ces dernières éclaircissent nettement les ambiguïtés et les contradictions du système colonial.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 44 , Issue 3 , July 1974 , pp. 235 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1974

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References

2 I have drawn my examples from Africa and therefore consider the neglect of British, French, and Belgians as subjects of study. However, Americans have shown themselves no better in their neglect of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, traders, and missionaries when studying contemporary American Indian life,

3 Oliver, Roland, The Missionary Factor in East Africa, Longmans, London, 1952Google Scholar ; Sundkler, Bengt, Bantu Prophets in South Africa, Lutterworth, London, 1948Google Scholar ; The Christian Ministry in Africa, Swedish Institute of Missionary Research, Uppsala, 1960Google Scholar . Edwin Smith may have been in the minds of some, but he is rarely cited these days.

4 The best of the British-trained or influenced are: Ajayi, J. F. A., Christian Missionsin Nigeria 1841-1891, Longmans, London, 1965Google Scholar ; Ayandele, E. A., The Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria 1842-1914, Huinanities, New York, 1967Google Scholar ; Ekechi, F. K., Missionary Enterprise and Rivalry in Igboland 1842-1914, Cass, London, 1971Google Scholar ; Murphree, M. W., Christianity and the Shona, Athlone, London, 1969Google Scholar ; Rotberg, R. L., Christian Missionaries and the Creation of Northern Rhodesia, Princeton University, Princeton, 1965CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; Temu, A. J., British Protestant Missions, Longmans, London, 1972Google Scholar ; Wishlade, R. L., Sectarianism in Southern Nyasaland, Oxford University Press, London, 1965Google Scholar ; Wright, Marcia, German Missions in Tanganyika 1891-1941, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1971.Google Scholar

Examples of Sundkler's influence may be found in the various publications of Studia Missionalia Upsaliensia, including Beverhause, P. and Hallencreutz, C. F. (eds.), The Church Crossing Frontiers, 1969Google Scholar ; Hellbert, C-J., Missions on a Colonial Frontier West of Lake Victoria, 1965Google Scholar ; Sicard, S. von, The Lutheran Church on the Coast of Tanzania 1887-1914, 1970Google Scholar ; and in Pauw, B. A., Religion in a Tswana Chiefdom, Oxford University Press, for the International African Institute, London, 1960Google Scholar .

5 Sundkler and those influenced by him apply sociological theory when describing African sepa- ratists, but they become highly subjective and far less critical when examining their fellow European missionaries and the basic features of the Christian church. The literature by missionary groups is im- mense. A few examples of useful studies on th e church in Africa are: Andersson, E., Churches at the Grassroots, Friendship Press, New York, 1968Google Scholar ; Mobley, H. W., The Ghanaian's Image of the Missionary, Brill, Leiden, 1970Google Scholar ; Rubingh, E., Sons of Tit, a Study of the Rise of the Church among the Tiv of Central Nigeria, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, 1969Google Scholar ; Smith, N., The Presbyterian Church of Ghana 1835-1960, Ghana University, Accra, 1966Google Scholar ; Taylor, J. V. and Lehman, D. A., Christians of the Copperbelt, SCM, London, 1961Google Scholar ; Taylor, J. V., The Growth of the Church in Ruganda, SCM, London, 1958Google Scholar ; Welbourn, F. B., East African Rebels, SCM, London, 1961Google Scholar .

6 The symposium volume, Baëta, C. G. (ed.), Christianity in Tropical Africa, Oxford University Press, for the International African Institute, London, 1968Google Scholar , is most disappointing, both in the lack of new insights and in the superficiality of most of the papers. No studies specifically o f missionaries seem to be in progress to judge from recent issues of African Religious Research, African Studies Center, University of California, Los Angeles. The International Review of Missions (since 1970Google Scholar , International Review of Mission) contains few essays of sociological use, but the bibliographical survey published in each issue is essential for anyone in mission studies. The number and range of material cited in each issue indicate the staggering volume of material continually published on this topic. It is remarkable tha t despite this, little reflects any grasp of sociological principles. Other relevant journals are The Bulletin of ttie Society for African Church History, the Journal of Religion in Africa, and Practical Anthropology (now Missiology) which have encouraged publication on missionary problems but nothing has appeared which could be called a sociological stud y of missionaries or a mission station.

7 The issue of class experience can even affect attitudes about methods of discipline and education. For example, the harsh measures taken by missionaries at Livingstonia, in what is now Malawi, must be seen in part as a reflection not of racist cruelty against Blacks but of the pervading philosophy of harshness in discipline reflected in the prisons and schools of Victorian Britain.

8 I am aware of the works of Robert Heussler, but these exhibit almost no appreciation of sociological aspects of class, authority, or power: see yesterday's Rulers, Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, 1963Google Scholar ; The British in Northern Nigeria, Oxford University Press, London, 1968Google Scholar .

9 Ekechi remarks on similar conduct by the C.M.S. in southern Nigeria (1971: 183-6). He argues that this relates to their general hostility towards higher education and secular skills in that this involved teaching in English rather than the vernacular; Ekechi rightly observes that the C.M.S. emphasized vernacular education as a means to reading Scripture translated into the vernacular. In this sense, there was a doctrinaj basis for C.M.S. policies related to their antagonism towards higher education, in contrast to Roman Catholics who had no such commitments and who quickly accommodated themselves to the colonial government's needs for more secular education.

10 Perhaps the most sociologically perceptive study by a missionary is Mylene, Louis George, Missions to Hindus, Longmans, Green, London, 1908Google Scholar ; the sociologist Heise, D. R. makes much of this in ‘Prefatory Findings in the Sociology of Missions’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religions, 6 (1967), 49–65CrossRefGoogle Scholar . A somewhat similar position, contrasting the static-self-contained mission station with the expanding, open mission community was made by the missionary McGavran, D. A., The Bridges of God, a Study in the Strategy of Missions, World Dominion, London, 1955Google Scholar . Few anthropologists have seriously considered missionaries or conversion. Tswana, I. Schapera studied conversion but paid little attention to the missionaries, ‘Christianity and the Tswana’, J.R.A.I. 88 (1958), 1–10Google Scholar . More recently Horton, Robin has attempted to reconsider conversion anthropologically, ‘African Conversion’, Africa, 41 (1971), 85–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar , and has been criticized by Fisher, H. J., ‘Conversion Reconsidered’, Africa, 43 (1973), 27–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar . None of these writers has displayed much sensitivity to the conduct of missionaries themselves, much less to their notions about conversion.

11 Hewit, Gordon, The Problems of Success, SCM, London, 1971Google Scholar .

12 I follow African usage and label all Whites as Europeans regardless of whether they come from Europe, America, or the Antipodes.

13 Proceedings of the CMS. (1892-1893), 53Google Scholar .

14 Of course, in recent times in Tanganyika (Tanzania), Government insisted that in state-subsidized mission schools, students could not be forced to receive such religious instruction, but in practice such niceties were not usually observed.

15 Proceedings of the CMS. (1947-1948), 11Google Scholar .

16 Winter, E. H. and Beidelman, T. O., ‘Tanganyika’, in Contemporary Change in Traditional Societies (ed. Steward, J.), University of Illinois, Urbana, 1967, pp. 185–6Google Scholar .

17 In a somewhat muddled way this seems the point of an essay by Davis, R. H., ‘Interpreting the Colonial Period in African History’, Afr. Affairs, lxxii (1973), 383–400CrossRefGoogle Scholar .