The Church in Africa, 1450-1950

718 Pages·1994·33.93 MB·English

by  Adrian Hastings

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
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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
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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