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The Church in Africa, 1450-1950 PDF

718 Pages·1994·33.93 MB·English
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T HE O X F O RD H I S T O RY OF T HE C H R I S T I AN C H U R CH Edited by I lenry and Owen Chadwick The Church in Africa 1 4 5 0 - 1 9 50 A D R I AN H A S T I N GS C L A R E N D ON PRF.SS O X F O RD 1994 Oxford University Pren, Walton Street, Oxford 0x2 6DP Oxford .\'eu> York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bombay Calcutta Capte Town Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi £ Kuala Ijumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne _ * Mexico City Nairobi Paris Singapore ^vX U ^ ' Taipei 7bkyo Toronto CAA companies in r^C'fftY -<•)] Berlin Ibadan '<Qxjord is a trade mark of Oxford University Press Published in the United States by Oxford University Press In., New York C<D Adrian Hastings 1 yy.) All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press. Within the UK, exceptions are allowed in respect of any fair dealing for the purpose of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, hj88 or in the case of } reprographic reproduction in <ucordance with the terms of the licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms and in other countries should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Pre<s, at the address above British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available. library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Ihe Church in Africa: 1450-1y50/Adrum Hastings. (The Oxford history of the Christian Church) i. Christianity—Africa—History. 2. Christians, Black—Africa —History, j. Church and state—Africa. 4. Missions— Africa—History I. Title, fl. Series. BR1360.H364 iy<)4 276—dc20 <J4~ $6 77 ISBN o-1(J-H2692 J -8: £60 i 3 s 7 c) jo S 6 4 2 Typeset byJ&L Composition Dd., h'iley, Sörth Yorkshire Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddies Dd., Guildford and King's Lynn PREFACE Limitations are inevitable. A work of history must have its frontiers and yet it is often impossible to adhere to them very rigidly without cutting into a flow of interacting developments unduly. This book is about the Churches within black Africa. The history of Churches on the Mediterranean coast or in the south when composed principally of white people is excluded except in so far as it forms part of the story of a black Church. I have also, with regret, excluded Madagascar. Its Church history is exceptionally interesting but it stands essentially on its own and to do it justice would have required more space than I could afford. The frontiers in time have been more elastic: T 450-1950 provides a clean 500 years but it is inevitably rather arbitrary and I have not forced myself to feel constrained by these dates. Medieval Ethiopia is the right place to start but it seemed sensible to review, at least briefly, the earlier history of Christianity in Africa. Moreover, fifteenth- century Ethiopia cannot make sense without quite detailed discussion of developments, monastic and royal, of a century earlier. At the other end, 1950 is 110 less unsatisfactory, as a sharp point of conclusion: i960, 'the Year of Africa', is a better cutting-off point, beyond which 1 have not gone. Nevertheless, I have kept to 1950 in the title for two reasons beyond that of neatness. The first is that a very great deal was happening in the 1950s, a time when the Churches were growing very rapidly in societies conscious that their political future was about to see great changes. I have not had the space to focus on these developments in adequate detail. In many ways they can, anyway, be better studied with the 1960s. My second reason is that I have already done this in A History of African Christianity 1950-197$, published in 1979. Having had more space to deal with these decades there, 1 did not think it sensible to repeat it, except rather briefly, here. The intention of the book is to end with some account of where the Churches had reached on the eve of colonialisms collapse, but not to chart in detail the way they were beginning to respond to a new predicament. A history of African vi Preface Christianity 1960-90 could be of exceptional interest but at present the material is not available. Mv/ indebtedness is,' above all,* to a small armv of scholars who,7 over / the last forty years, have made this book possible. It rests wholly on their shoulders, its special contribution being the attempt to make of so many different stories something of a single whole. Writing it has made me see clearly what very big gaps remain. On topic after topic, from sixteenth-century Ethiopia to the nineteenth-century mis- sionary movement, there is not a single, wide-ranging, reliable modern work. 1 have to thank the British Academy for a grant in 1990 to support study at Yale, and Yale Divinity School for a research fellowship both then and in 1988. The Overseas Ministries Study Center at Yale provided me on both occasions with hospitality and assistance of every sort for which 1 am particularly grateful. The librarians at the Divinity School and the Sterling Library at Y*le were always immensely helpful, as have been those at Rhodes House, Oxford, and in the Brotherton here in Leeds. My wife has throughout supported and encouraged me in a work which has often seemed too dauntingly vast, since I agreed to undertake it in 1980. She has also improved its English at many points. I must also thank the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Leeds not only for a generous grant towards the preparation of this book but also for providing a community of friendship, pleasure, and shared learning of a sort not these days so easily found in our harassed and over- competitive university world. Last, but first in the debt I owe, Ingrid Lawrie, whose commitment to the book has been throughout no less determined than my own. She has typed and revised every line, checked it for inconsistencies, struggled to meet deadlines by- working late at night. For such professionalism, joined to affection, there is no adequate way of saying thanks. ADRIAN HASTINGS Leeds August Kj(j3 C O N T E N TS A Note on Names xi List of Abbreviations xiii PART I. 1450-1780: A MF.DIFVAI. KNVIRONMKNT 1. The Ethiopian Church in the Age of Zara Ya'iqob 3 i. Introduction: The Council of I )ahra Micmaq 3 ii. Coptic and Aksumite Origins 5 iii. Ethiopia's Hebraic Character 11 lv. Monasticisin and Monarchv in the Fourteenth Centurv 17 v. The 'House of Ewostatewos* and Sabbath Observance 28 vi. The Policies of Zara Ya'iqob 34 vu. The Age of Baida Maryani 42 2. Africa in 1 500 and its Christian Past 46 1. Society, States, Statelessness, and Religion 46 ii. African Islam 54 iii. The Christian Past of North Africa and Survival in Egypt 62 lv. Nubia 67 3. The Kongo, Warn, Mutapa, and the Portuguese 71 The Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries 71 i. Portugal Overseas 71 ii. Kongo and its Initial Evangelization 73 iii. Benin and Mutapa 77 i v. Kongolese Catholicism under Afonso I and his Immediate Successors 79 The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries 87 v. The Diocese of Sâo Salvador and the Jesuits 87 vi. The Mission of the Capuchins 94 vii. The Battle of Ambuila, Kimpa Vita, and the Antonian Movement 102 vni. The Kongo Church in the Eighteenth Century 109 ix. Angola. Sierra Leone, Warri, and Mutapa 118 x. The Slave Trade and its Implications 123 xi. An Evaluation 126 Contents VI 11 4. Riches to Rags: Ethiopia 1500-1800 130 i. The Church of Lebna Dengel 130 ii. The Jihad of Gran 136 iii. Galawdewos, the Jesuits, and Enbaqom 139 i v. Paez and Susenyos 148 v. M endes and Fasiladas 154 vi. The Eighteenth Century 162 FART II. 1780-1890: FROM THF ANTI-ST.AVF.RY TO TOTAL SUBJUGATION 5. Equiano to Ntsikana: From the 1780s to the 1820s 173 i. London, Africa, and Protestantism 173 ii. West African Protestant Beginnings and the Foundation of Freetown 177 iii. The Advance of Islam 188 iv. Kongo Christianity under Garcia V 194 v. South Africa: Genadendal, Bethelsdorp, and Kuruman 197 vi. The Mission Village: A Discussion 209 vii. Khoi Leadership and Ntsikana 215 6. The Lion Revived: Ethiopia in the Nineteenth Century 222 i. The Age of the Princes 222 ii. Tewodros 1855-68 229 iii. Yohannes IV and Menelik 234 7. The Victorian Missionary 242 The Evolution of a Movement 242 i. Where Protestant Mission had Arrived by the 1840s 242 ii. The Catholic Revival 248 iii. David Livingstone and his Influence 250 iv. Verona Fathers and White Fathers 253 v. The State of Missionary Complexity by 1880 255 Style, Priorities, and Mind 258 vi. Missionary Characteristics and Life-Style 258 vii. Missionar)-' Teaching 270 viii. The Uses of Medicine 275 ix. Language and Translation 278 x. Christianity, Civilization, and Commerce 282 xi. The Three Selves and the Pursuit of Adaptation 293 xii. What Missionaries Thought of Africa 298 8. Kings, Marriage, Ancestors, and God 306 i. Monarchies and Christianization 306 Contents ix ii. Rain 313 iii. Social Structure: Marriage, Circumcision, and Secret Societies 317 iv. Ancestors, Deities, and God 325 9. Christian Life in the Age of Bishop Crowther 338 1. 'Black Europeans' 338 ii. Crowther and the Niger Diocese 343 iii. Yoruba Christianity 349 iv. The South African Predicament 358 v. Buganda: Conversion, Martyrdom, and Civil War in the 1880s 371 vi. Revival in the Kongo 385 vii. The Niger Purge 388 PART III. 1890-1960: THE CHRISTIANIZING OF HALF A CONTINENT 10. A Variety of Scrambles: 1890-T920 397 The Context of Conversion 397 i. The Why and How of the Scramble 397 ii. Islam within the Scramble 40$ iii. Missionaries and the Politics of Partition 408 iv. The Changing Shape of Missionary Endeavour 417 v. The Ownership of Land 424 vi. Missionaries as Critics of Colonialism 428 The Shaping of Conversion 437 vii. Black Evangelism: Some Southern Examples 437 viii. West African Conversion Movements in the Age of Harris 443 ix. The Catechist and his Tools 453 x. Logics of Conversion 461 xi. Buganda: mass Conversion in the 1890s 464 xii. Buganda as a Model for its Neighbours 468 xiii. A Comparison between Conversions 475 xiv. Varieties of Ethiopianism 478 xv. The Impact of World War 487 11. From Agbebi to Diangienda: Independency and Prophetism 493 i. 'African Churches' in Nigeria and South Africa 1888-1917 493 ii. The Rise of Zionism 499 iii. Elliot Kamwana 504 iv. Harrists and Kimbanguists 505 X 11 Contents v. Aladura 513 vi. East and Central Africa: From Kunyiha to Lenshina 519 vii. Independency in the 1950s 525 viii. Causes and Motivations 527 ix. The Character of Prophetic Christianity 533 12. Church, School, and State in the Age of Bishop Kiwanuka 540 The State and the Missionary 540 1 The 1920s and Education 540 ii The Second World War and the Triumph of Nationalisms 546 iii Protestant Missionary Priorities in the Oldham Era 550 iv The Catholic Breakthrough 559 v The Missionary of the 1950s 567 The Character of Christian Community 571 vi Catholic Masaka 571 vii Conversion, Community, and Catechist 575 viii Dreams 584 ix Church and Society 586 x Associational Religion: From Welfare Group and Manyano to Balokole andjamaa 592 xi A Modern Leadership 604 Appendix 1. Kings of Ethiopia and Kongo Referred to in the Text 61 t Appendix 2. Maps 613 1. Ethiopia, fifteenth to seventeenth centuries 613 2. Christian Nubia 614 3. The Kingdom of Kongo, fifteenth to seventeenth centuries 615 4. Islam in West Africa and the nineteenth-century Fulani empires 616 5. The West Africa coast in the late nineteenth century 617 (>. Protestant missions in South and East Africa established by 1885 618 7. The principal Catholic missionary societies at work in Africa between 1850 and 1890 619 8. Buganda and its neighbours 620 Bibliography 621 Index 686

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Covering five centuries--from the rise of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in the 15th century and the early Portuguese missionaries right through to the Church and its key role in Africa today--this major new volume is the first complete history of the Christian Church in Africa. Written by a leading
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