IN the last two installments I wrote on the issues surrounding how the missionary churches managed to deceive most Africans into believing that they were a God-given lot, and how some early missionaries, such as Robert Moffat, acted as an advance party prior to the colonisation of Africa in general and Zimbabwe in particular.
While we should not paint every missionary with the same brush, there were some missionaries who helped in the struggle for independence in other African countries.
In Zimbabwe particularly, some missionaries did not have negative destructive policies and practices of the colonialists, they opposed the aggressive and oppressive treatment of Africans (by whites).
Sections of the church, particularly the Catholics, began their long, sullen criticism of the Ian Smith regime, but their protests were heavily censured. The church chronicled atrocities by the regime forces and also admitted to assisting guerillas, sometimes willingly and sometimes under duress.
The centrepiece of the regime’s hostility to Catholic opposition was Donald Lamont, the Bishop of Umtali (now Mutare), who, after a long trial, was deprived of his citizenship and deported: the hardline Minister of Law and Order, Hillary Squires, was reluctant to turn the Bishop into a martyr by imprisoning him.
In a strong attack on Bishop Lamont, Squires epitomised the anger of white Rhodesians at the stance taken by the World Council of Churches and other religious bodies. He said:“I have had more than enough of the intellectual arrogance of his beliefs, of his continued denigration of what the government has ever done, (attacking innocent civilians and fighting guerillas) while continuing to enjoy the benefit and, most especially, the hypocrisy of his selective conscience, (of supporting the struggle).”
Although some of the country’s religious bodies, particularly the Anglicans, condemned the ‘terrorist’ (liberation war fighters), the WCC became synonymous with the Patriotic Front as Rhodesian whites’ swear words. Rhodesia had passed the Unilateral Declaration of Independence to preserve the ‘civilised’ Christian way of life, but now she was coming perilously close to rejecting much of the organised Christian opinion that had crystallised outside the country.
Some of the missionaries became outspoken supporters of the rise of African nationalism leading to independence of most Africa from colonial rule. One such missionary was Guy Clutton-Brock who was post-humously declared a national hero for his stance against the oppression of Zimbabweans.
There were several other similar fighters for the emancipation of sub-Saharan Africa such as Reverend Chikane. Of importance is that at some point most of their compatriots played or were playing a role in collaboration with the colonialists.
Despite a general colonial mentality among the missionaries, they exercised a mitigating influence among colonists, protesting against abuses and succeeding in their suppression.
Even missionaries who had advocated a protectorate, as in Malawi, became very critical of the way it was introduced. But in those early times missionaries were more independent and abuses more flagrant.
It must be borne in mind that, the colonial period facilitated the coming of a great number of missionaries and spreading the gospel. Under European rule the innumerable tribes became easily accessible as their frontiers were broken down.
The economic infrastructure, political administration and especially the improved means of travelling and communication tremendously facilitated the evangelisation.
Both missionaries and local people profited from colonial health services. The introduction of a monetary economy with salaried work was often the decisive reason for parents to send their children to mission schools where they learned the Christian faith.
These schools were the greatest social service to developing nations and towards the emancipation of women.
After the First World War, almost all mission stations worked on converging lines, concentrating on schools and hospitals. Both Catholics and Lutherans aimed at having whole regions evangelised, so, they moved from village to village, erecting a school here or a prayer place there and entrusting it to catechists and evangelists who had a high moral authority and responsible for converts.
The time up to 1920s can be called the age of the ‘bush schools’, where they instructed the catechumens and taught the three R’s (Reading, Writing, Arithmetic). In the years 1920-1940, the ‘age of primary schools’, they were much helped, and supplanted, by teachers. The time between 1945 and 1960 was the age of secondary schools, while independence ushered in the ‘age of universities’.
The missionaries’ activities are a topic open to debate today. They played manifold roles and stimulated cultural, political and religious change as is usual in every meeting of different people. Historians still discuss the nature of their impact and question their relation to European colonialism on the continent. How far were Christian missionaries instrumental in facilitating colonial exploitation? How much were they influenced by the colonial mentality?
To the foreigners, servitude was the Africans’ greatest virtue. What they failed to understand was how much the African suffered in terms of trauma and inferiority complex.
On their side, the missionaries, as a rule, were willing to study African languages, customs and history. The educated Africans followed European manners.
Only after the disillusion produced by colonial rule, African culture was again respected and sought for.
Often there was an undeclared solidarity among white men, especially if settlers and missionaries had the same nationality and faith. Individual missionaries who did not comply with the discriminatory code of behaviour were derided.
European paternalism hesitated to entrust Africans with tasks of responsibility.
Lack of trust accounted for the missionaries’ doing much for the people but little with the people. They dominated the whole Church life.
Though the catechist did the main work in teaching the catechumens, it was the missionary who supervised it and sat over the final examination. Again, the catechist watched over the flock’s discipline, but the missionary set rules and made judgments.
The sharing of responsibility with African priests or pastors, and the eventual handing-over was far-away on the horizon.
The earliest and most radical reaction was the founding of independent churches, so as to freely develop African leadership against European spiritual and cultural domination.