Degree Program
Undergraduate
Major
American Culture Studies
Abstract
Christian missionaries were among the first Europeans to move into Africa. They came on a mission to save the souls of a seemingly primitive population, an attitude that was further enabled and encouraged by recently developed ethnocentric philosophies of "scientific racism." Within this social climate, missionaries not only felt obligated to assimilate Africans toward Christian religious practice, but also toward European ways of living. The result, coincidentally or not, was an undermining of African culture that is thought by many scholars to have aided in the successful takeover by colonial governments in the region. Christian virtues of passivity and humility encouraged a sense complacency within the established hegemonic structure while also leading Africans to believe that their suffering within these conditions strengthened their relationship with God.
Over time, however, many Africans became fed up with the institutionalized oppression inherent within the colonial system. Often beginning their lives within the missionary establishment, African revolutionaries began sprouting up throughout the continent, emboldened by a new hybrid form of Christianity that more often cited its egalitarian virtues to condemn the injustice against their people. African Independent Churches were equally spiritual and political --- providing a platform for uprising against social injustice as well as a sense of identity formed in solidarity and unification. While many scholars have argued that missionaries and colonial governments were "bedfellows" at the onset of the colonial period, Africans took their initial teachings and formed them to create a religion that was all their own --- one that interwove virtues of traditional African society and more "modernized" virtues aimed to help overcome the injustice of colonial oppression.
Start Date
13-2-2015 1:30 PM
End Date
13-2-2015 3:00 PM
Included in
Christianity as a Double-Edged Sword in Colonial Africa
Christian missionaries were among the first Europeans to move into Africa. They came on a mission to save the souls of a seemingly primitive population, an attitude that was further enabled and encouraged by recently developed ethnocentric philosophies of "scientific racism." Within this social climate, missionaries not only felt obligated to assimilate Africans toward Christian religious practice, but also toward European ways of living. The result, coincidentally or not, was an undermining of African culture that is thought by many scholars to have aided in the successful takeover by colonial governments in the region. Christian virtues of passivity and humility encouraged a sense complacency within the established hegemonic structure while also leading Africans to believe that their suffering within these conditions strengthened their relationship with God.
Over time, however, many Africans became fed up with the institutionalized oppression inherent within the colonial system. Often beginning their lives within the missionary establishment, African revolutionaries began sprouting up throughout the continent, emboldened by a new hybrid form of Christianity that more often cited its egalitarian virtues to condemn the injustice against their people. African Independent Churches were equally spiritual and political --- providing a platform for uprising against social injustice as well as a sense of identity formed in solidarity and unification. While many scholars have argued that missionaries and colonial governments were "bedfellows" at the onset of the colonial period, Africans took their initial teachings and formed them to create a religion that was all their own --- one that interwove virtues of traditional African society and more "modernized" virtues aimed to help overcome the injustice of colonial oppression.