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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Ambiguity of the mission Christianity in the colonial Africa: historical and anthropological essay
Author:Kaczy'nski, Grzegorz J.ISNI
Year:1997
Periodical:Africana Bulletin
Issue:44
Pages:39-62
Language:English
Geographic term:Subsaharan Africa
Subjects:culture contact
Western culture
African culture
missionary history
colonialism
Abstract:Three elements falsified the authentic nature of the missionary undertaking in black Africa and blurred the image of Christianity: the link with colonialism, paternalism and mission Europocentrism. Missionaries were closely involved in colonial relations and often failed to keep an appropriate distance between their own activities and those of the colonial administration. Missionary activity would have been less contaminated by the colonial context if it had not been influenced by an attitude of cultural distance to Africa, shared by all Europeans, and a belief in the civilizing mission of Christian Europe. The tendency to identify Christianity with European culture became a permanent and dominating element of the mission culture and led not only to the negation of traditional African creeds, but also to a confessional interpretation of African culture in general. However, if Christianity in Africa contributed to the disintegration of traditional structures, it also provided Africans participating in the acculturation process with the most comprehensible and adequate system of reference with regard to their outlook on life. The truth of essential Christian concepts - of social justice, salvation, love of one's neighbour - was evidenced by the activity of churches and mission organizations reaching far beyond the domain of religion itself, especially into the areas of education and sanitary care. Notes, ref.
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