CHRISTIANITY AND RELIGIOUS CHANGE IN AFRICA

Abstract

TWELVE YEARS AGO, in a survey of writing on African Christian history, the greatest emphasis was laid on those studies which were then beginning to reveal the extent of the contribution of African pioneers to the development of the Christian churches in Africa. Already it was apparent that the significance of African leadership was by no means confined to the Independent or Separatist churches, although the relatively untrammelled exercise of African initiative was obviously one of the most notable and attractive aspects of these movements. Already we were beginning to recognize that right from the start of the modern history of Christian missions in West Africa, from the earliest days in the settlements at Freetown, the role of African ministers and evangelists and of African Christian traders, teachers and craftsmen had been of crucial importance in the development of the mission-connected churches in West Africa. And already one wondered whether a similar reorientation, away from an emphasis on the policies and activities of the European missionaries, would not likewise transform our understanding of church history in East and Central Africa.' This interest in the early 1960s in the initiative of outstanding African Christians was doubtless to some extent a reflection of the concerns of secular historians at that period. The academic study of African history was then just emerging from its infancy. Scholars still had to assert and demonstrate that an adequate understanding of Africa demanded a thorough analysis of African enterprise. The history of Africa was not merely the history of its invaders: the end of colonial rule was helping to place European activities in a new and far more modest perspective. In the last ten years this preoccupation of scholars with African initiatives has widened and deepened almost beyond recognition. Now we are no longer primarily concerned with the efforts and achievements of a handful of pioneers. The leadership and creativity of dedicated African Christians still elicits respect and recognition; but the rediscovery of their contribution now assumes an added significance, for it is seen as merely one facet of the response to Christianity on the part of African societies as a whole. The focus is shifting from the work and careers of prominent individual Africans, important and significant though