When Two Worlds Collide: Missionaries and the Soul of Africa

Africa possessed a vibrant tapestry of its own deeply rooted religious and cultural traditions. However, many of the missionaries who encountered this rich heritage viewed it through a lens of profound disdain. They often perceived African ways of life as backward, inadequate, and even heathen, suggesting a near absence of genuine religious structures or a concept of a Supreme Being. In their eyes, non-Western cultures were frequently equated with degradation, barbarism, ignorance, and darkness.

Their fervent desire was for Africans to renounce their ancestral cultures and wholeheartedly embrace Western customs. This missionary attitude is starkly captured in the words of J.J. Freeman: “They must be secluded not only from the heathen portion of the community but from their home habits, customs and occupations, even though their parents may be Christian, lest they imbibe that love of a life among the flocks and herds by which natives seem so.”

The underlying motive was often to pave the way for colonial expansion by mentally preparing Africans for the impending takeover. The aim was to cultivate a generation of African children who would grow up detached from their own identity, becoming Europeanized in their thinking and thus more receptive to European colonial rule from a young age. For many European missionaries, the lines between Westernizing the world and converting it to Christianity were blurred. They often propagated Christian values and Western civilization as inseparable entities, with commerce and colonization seen as natural allies. Conversely, African traditions and cultural practices were deemed inferior, uncivilized, and primitive, making the imposition of Western culture a perceived mandate to “civilize” Africans. Even the concept of God was presented in a foreign idiom, seemingly disregarding the existing spiritual frameworks and languages of the indigenous people. This perspective often led missionaries to actively cooperate with colonizers in undermining the very religious institutions that underpinned ancient African cultures.

A key strategy involved targeting African rulers for conversion, with the expectation that the conversion of chiefs would lead to the subsequent adoption of Christianity by their subjects, thereby preparing the ground for colonial administration. David Livingstone himself believed that missionary work held a crucial cultural role: “to leaven the alleged primitiveness of African society with Christian western culture.” Indeed, many missionaries in Southern Africa held the conviction that their way of life embodied universally applicable values and saw it as their moral imperative to “civilize” Africans – a “civilization” defined by European values, standards, and lifestyles. They often viewed themselves and their nations as divinely chosen, tasked with rescuing Africans from perceived backwardness, heathenism, and superstitious beliefs, aiming to reshape African customs to align with Western norms.

The erosion of the chiefs’ authority was often viewed as a necessary step in dismantling African political and cultural systems. For instance, the limited success of missionary conversions in Botswana during the reign of Sekgoma was seen as justification to undermine the power of the chiefs. Tswana chiefs who resisted Christianity faced removal with the support of the colonial government. Some missionaries even openly advocated for direct British rule, believing that this system would create a more conducive environment for the spread of Western culture, which they considered superior and more amenable to the growth of Christianity.

By weakening the traditional leadership, missionaries hoped to facilitate the rise of rulers who would readily support their agenda. This partly explains their tendency to side with Christian rulers in disputes with their non-Christian counterparts.

Ultimately, the efforts of many missionaries aimed at diminishing the strength, values, and potential of traditional African authority. In their drive for evangelization, they often became proponents of the colonial process, insisting that converts to Christianity should also adopt Western cultural practices as an integral part of their new faith. In doing so, they not only potentially contradicted core tenets of Christian teaching but also compromised its message. The campaign against practices like polygamy, for example, is argued by some to have been part of a broader strategy to force Africans into a Western way of life, aligning them more closely with the colonizers’ vision. The impact of such interventions, like the abandonment of polygamy by influential figures under missionary influence, often triggered significant upheaval in the traditional political, social, and economic structures of African societies, inadvertently or intentionally creating an environment more conducive to Western influence.ed the western way of life (Tlou& Campbell 1997:187).