The Interpretations, Problems and Possibilities of Missionary Sources in the History of Christianity in Africa

Studies in World Christianity have often analysed a variety of religious expression by attending to local responses under-represented in global church structures. Many historians of World Christianity emphasise the plurality within Christianity by seeking indigenous perspectives on the processes of religious change, Christian development and transnational influence. Frequently, much historical evidence for the activities and reception of early Christian converts, church workers and religious movements is found in the vast corpus of documentation produced and preserved by western missionary societies in Europe, North America and the Antipodes. This literature has been considered flawed evidence, focussed upon the concerns of missionaries, their societies and supporters, and therefore unrepresentative of the social, political and economic dynamics of communities that missionaries were working amongst and dismissive of their cultural norms. From around 1990, however, approaches to World Christianity studies have been influenced by a renewed use of missionary archives by historians and anthropologists. This chapter starts by reviewing the variety of theoretical perspectives produced through the use of mission sources to understand historical processes of social and religious change. The second section of the chapter provides a detailed study of an event described in a missionary source in order to enquire in depth into the problems and possibilities of the sources. The final section of the chapter furthers this enquiry by examining the nature of missionary sources. This chapter illustrates its discussion of the problems and possibilities of missionary literature largely with reference to nineteenth and twentieth century European and Protestant sources in sub-Saharan Africa. Nevertheless, it shows that missionary sources are particularly informative about the participation of indigenous Christians in a global movement which comprised common threads as well as distinct, local practices.