![]() The Portuguese were the first to introduce the Christian faith into West Africa but following their departure from the West Coast in the mid-seventeenth century, the Christian religion survived only in Upper Guinea where a bishop was maintained in the Cape Verde Islands serving also a part of the mainland. West Africa owes to the Christian missionaries not only a new religious faith which has changed the beliefs and life of millions of people, but also the foundation of western education. There were related organizations that sprang up in Scandinavia, Holland and the USA. Initially, a majority of the missionary journeys was done with English-Speaking Protestants and later, in the 1820s and 1830s, they were joined by continental Protestantism from Germany, Switzerland and France. The others include the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1804, which was tasked with the responsibility of promoting the translation and printing of the Holy Bible. For instance, on 2 nd October 1792, the Baptist Missionary Society was formed followed by the interdenominational London Missionary Society which was established in 1795. The late Eighteenth Century witnessed the rise of Christian groups in Europe that resorted to the evangelization of Africa. Therefore the period for the rise of Christianizing Missions in the late Nineteenth Century has been considered as reprise. It is important to emphasize that the modern history of the Christian Mission in Africa started from the late Eighteenth Century, the Catholics had been there earlier in the first centuries of the Christian era especially during the first Portuguese adventures. In the later 19 th century, the immense African interior remained the principal object of the Catholic Priests, and from 1867 until his death in November 1892 Cardinal Lavigerie planned the planting of churches in Africa South of the Sahara. At the end of the eighteenth century, the Evangelical Revival began to bring to Africa an influx of missionaries whose laoburs would produce the first fruits of an enduring Christian presence in Sub-Sahara Africa. The others include the French trading posts at Grand Bassam (Ivory Coast), Assinie and Libreville in Gabon.Īpart from the extreme south and the Horn, the interior was hardly touched by Europeans before the last quarter of the Nineteenth Century. Some early success included the Liberian coast where Afro-Americans and freed slaves were converted. The early success of the missionaries included areas like Freetown and surrounding villages. The CMS began to work in the freed slave villages in Sierra Leone in 1804 and the Methodist in 1811. New missionary societies (the LMS, the CMS, the Holy Ghost Fathers, the White Fathers, etc.) began work in many parts of Africa. In the 19thh century, too, Afro-Brazilians returned to Benin and Nigeria with Catholicism.Ī new era began with the settlements of Black Christians from Nova Scotia in Sierra Leone in 1787 and the missionary advance inland from Cape Town beginning with the arrival there of J. ![]() However, by the turn of the Nineteenth Century there was systematic efforts by churches of Christian Europe, namely: Anglicans, Methodists, and Baptists who were active in Sierra Leone and, with Presbyterians, in Nigeria, while Methodists also set up missions in Ghana, Gambia, and Dahomey. For several years they paid attention to slave trade rather than evangelization and Christianization of the people of West-Africa. The first Europeans arrived at the West-African Coasts at the end of the fifteenth century. It was however in the coastal territories filled with mulattos and other European trading communities that Christianity won some of its early success. ![]() The people received the message with indifference. The work of the missionaries also had little success initially. Again, in West-Africa, the efforts to go beyond the coast to reach those inland with the gospel coincided with the southwards expansion of Islam which posed some threat to the expansion of the work of Christian evangelizing missions. Several missionaries died at a youthful age due to the unfriendly tropical climate. The achievement of the purpose of these Christian Missions came with some costs. The others included the Christian responsibility for the regeneration of African peoples. non-slave trade), Christianity, Civilization and Colonization. It included the opening up of Africa to forces of change namely commerce (“legitimate commerce”, i.e. The anti-slavery issue and the humanitarian conscience also played a vital role in stimulating European interest in Africa and gave an impetus to mission work. The expansion of the missionary movement into Africa was part of the growing conception of Christian responsibility for the regeneration of African peoples. Please click this link to download the chapter.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |