“Onward, Christian soldiers!
Marching as to war,
With the cross of Jesus
Going on before.
Christ, the royal Master,
Leads against the foe;
Forward into battle,
See his banners go!”

SO went the lyrics of a song I had learnt to sing with gusto at my recently joined Chinhoyi High in 1983.
I had arrived at the school a couple of weeks earlier and already felt the cultural transformation of a boy who had hours before arriving in Chinhoyi, been herding cattle in drizzling Unyetu rains.
Now I could handle fork and knife with little clumsiness, sing from the heart English Christian hymns, could socialise in English and felt a sense of belonging in this multi-racial community.
‘Onward Christian soldiers’ carried with it the celebratory and victorious feel unlike my favourite assembly hymn in Unyetu; “Baba vaAbrahama….tumai Razaro, azondinunura ndatsva nemoto,” which fronted defeat.
Looking back at this experience, one sees continuity and celebration in the European colonial project in this country starting with the 16th Century Jesuit mission, the 19th Century missions from South Africa all the way to my being part of the ‘Onward Christian soldiers’ band!
As will be shown in the examples below, to be Christian meant to be Godly, white, European, literate and European language (English/Portuguese) speaking.
Missionaries came, as aptly put by Chikowero, as pathfinders and co-bearers of the imperial flag in the colonisation of Africa and African consciousness.
The Portuguese arrived at the east Africa coast at the beginning of the 16th Century. Portuguese military and administrative forts were quickly established to support trade and religious affairs on behalf of the Portuguese crown.
This was the genesis of Portuguese colonial interest in east Africa.
A 1559 letter by Father D. Goncalo, writing from Goa, India, to the Brothers of the Society of Jesus in Portugal clearly shows conflation between whites and God in the early coastal encounters:
“This is best shown by the Portuguese who are there among them when they tell us that the Kaffirs look upon them as gods and ask them for water and sun.”
In some Bantu languages like Chewa, God is ‘Mulungu’ and whiteman is ‘muzungu’, the latter being Shona for a Portuguese.
The god/whiteman (murungu/muzungu) issue originates from these early colonial encounters.
On the Mutapa, Goncalo wrote in same letter: “Besides this (Inhambane) kingdom which, so it seems, is so close to receiving the light of Jesus Christ, you may imagine, brethren, how many others lie open along all those provinces of the Cape of Good Hope and in them is very specially included the emperor of Manamotapa in whose power, they say, there are mines and hills of gold and in whose seat is near Sofala.”
Clearly the motivation was both spiritual and commercial.
In November 1861 Gonçalo da Silveira, a Jesuit father and Crown emissary, travelled to the court of King Mwene Mutapa, north-west of Mutoko near the Mazowe River.
Silveira arrived at Mutapa Negomo Mupunzagutu’s Zimbabwe on January 1 1561.
At the Mutapa court, Silveira was well received.
He was offered many presents including gold and women, but he refused.
This and curiosity over idols that Silveira presented to Negomo made a huge impression on the King and his mother.
Mutapa Negomo was baptised on the 25th day and renamed Dom Sebastiao.
Over 200 other citizens of Mutapa were baptised in the days that followed.
Mutapa religious leaders, councillors and Moslem traders connived to counter the threat posed by Silveira to their roles.
The aggrieved parties pointed to Silveira’s link to the Portuguese crown and local rivals of Mutapa such as Sachiteve.
They soon convinced Mutapa Negomo and on March 15 1561 Silveira was killed and his body was thrown into the Musengezi River.
Thereafter east African communities were to know no peace as the Portuguese crown sought to assert its authority by military might right up to the 19th Century.
The 19th Century witnessed renewed missionary activity on the Zimbabwean plateau.
The key drivers were British Protestants.
In 1824, Dr John Love of the Glasgow Missionary Society had helped found the Lovedale mission in South Africa.
By the 1850s, King Mzilikazi, from his Inyathi, had already established strong relations with whites from South Africa.
One of them, Robert Moffat, became a close personal friend.
It was as a result of this friendship that the London Missionary Society was allowed to open the Inyathi station in 1859.
Lobengula’s reign as king was characterised by large settlements of whites close to his residence.
At his first Bulawayo, Jesuits, of Silveira notoriety, established a mission station in 1879.
Within his residence there was heavy presence of European traders.
When he moved to his second Bulawayo, Umvutcha Kraal came to resemble a settlement of white hunters, concession seekers, traders and missionaries.
Both the London Missionary Society Mission at Inyathi and the Jesuit Mission at Bulawayo were monumental failures in terms of converts, only managing to convert their own domestic servants and cripples.
By the time of the 1884 Berlin Congress, the frustrated missionaries had concluded that the country could only be evangelised under European colonial authority.
This explains why missionaries openly conspired with concession-seekers in the events leading to pioneer occupation in 1890.
In 1891, a few months after the occupation of Mashonaland by the British South Africa Company (BSAC), Anglican Bishop Knight Bruce was accompanied by a young Bernard Mizeki, a Mozambican who had found Christianity in the Cape, South Africa, on a missionary expedition to Mashonaland.
Mizeki was soon posted to Mangwende’s Nhowe country.
Mizeki’s reputation as a teacher, preacher and medic grew and in March 1896, he married Mutwa, grand-daughter of Mangwende, Mungate II.
Mangwende’s senior wife and mother of Muchemwa, Zvandiparira, converted to Christianity.
In a space of five years, Christianity had started to rapidly crowd out Nhowe traditions and culture.
Natural disasters were also on the rise in the country and this was blamed on Mizeki.
Rumours were also circulating of Mizeki’s infidelity.
On June 1896, Muchemwa, who had been in contact with emissaries of Mambo Mashayamombe, Sekuru Kaguvi and Mbuya Nehanda, organised the killing of Mizeki.
It is said Mizeki’s body vanished and ever since, the place where this took place has been held in reverence by the Anglican family.
Another account says he was burnt to ashes by Muchemwa.
As with Anglicans, Methodists (Mahwisiri) waited for the occupation of Mashonaland in 1890 before making their entry in 1891.
In 1892, the Methodist Church brought in black evangelist teachers from the Cape Province of South Africa, as church workers.
Among them was Modumedi Moleli.
He played a great role in the establishment of what is now called Waddilove Mission.
Moleli was, however, killed by locals in 1896 after rescuing a white settler-farmer who had been injured during clashes between indigenous people and white settlers in the First Chimurenga.
With the end of the First Chimurenga, Christian mission stations got a boost and many were established on sacred hilltops as spiritual war prize.
Ever since, lyrics like ‘Onward Christian soldiers’ have celebrated this colonially-inspired religious victory.