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Christianity Group, African Studies

The document outlines the history of Christianity's arrival, implantation, and development in Africa, starting with Prince Henry the Great's expeditions in the 15th century. Despite initial failures in converting Africans, the 19th century saw renewed missionary efforts that established significant missions in regions like Sierra Leone and South Africa, ultimately leading to the emergence of African Indigenous Churches. These churches adapted Christianity to align with African cultural perspectives, addressing local needs and concerns that were previously overlooked by Western missionaries.

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Stephen nketia
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16 views3 pages

Christianity Group, African Studies

The document outlines the history of Christianity's arrival, implantation, and development in Africa, starting with Prince Henry the Great's expeditions in the 15th century. Despite initial failures in converting Africans, the 19th century saw renewed missionary efforts that established significant missions in regions like Sierra Leone and South Africa, ultimately leading to the emergence of African Indigenous Churches. These churches adapted Christianity to align with African cultural perspectives, addressing local needs and concerns that were previously overlooked by Western missionaries.

Uploaded by

Stephen nketia
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© © All Rights Reserved
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CHRISTIANITY GROUP

NAMES INDEX NO.

1. EDWARD OFORI 052141390017


2. STPEHN NKETIA 052141390003
3. STEPHEN DAVIS KODOM 052141390018
4. NTIM SOLOMON 052141390005
5. NUBIEKU DAMARIS DAKOR 052141390020
6. EDMOND F. MENDY 052141330067
7. OSEI KANKAM EVANS 052141390010
8. ESHEMEL JULIUS WATSON 052141390024
9. OTCHERE EDWIN POBI 052141390019
10. TIBOH NYAMEKYE ISSAC 052142060049
11. BOATENG AGYARKO AFUA FRIMPONMAA INA 052141390030
12. ARYEETEY GIFTY 052141390009
13. CELESTINO CHELE 052141390034
14. FRANCIS TETTEH 052141390023
15. COLLINS BUAH 052141390021
16. AGYEI MENSAH ROCKSON BRIGHT 052141390016
ARRIVAL, IMPLANTATION & DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY IN
AFRCIA
Prince Henry the Great was the first to make the contact between Africans and European Christians possible. This was so
through the search for the means of an alternated route to India that would go around the Muslims in Northern Africa.
Between 1421 and 1451, ten expeditions were sent and it was later in 1498 that they finally found that route that
they’ve been in search of. During this search it was also the intension of Prince Henry the Great to carry and spread the
message of Christ along the coast where trading centers were set up by the Portuguese. It was in 1491 that the first
contact was made between western European Christianity and Africans through the chief Manikonyo of the Bakonga
people. More contacts were made with other Africans but the mission of converting the people to Christianity was
unsuccessful.

Even though Prince Henry’s missionary aspect did not succeed, it brought about an awareness to western Christendom
of Africa being a potential missionary field.

In the 18th century just like the Portuguese Catholics, Protestant missionaries, Dutch and British merchants also made
contacts with Africans but tend not to be fruitful initially. Regardless of these initial failures in terms of converts it
brought Africa to the sight of European Christians as a potential field for spreading the message of Christ. Towards the
19th century renewed interest in missions in Africa was brought about during the religious revivals in Europe. This new
mission was specifically to abolish slave trade in the entire continent and introduce western education, honest work and
spreading the gospel. Most missionary bodies chose Sierra Leon as grounds to launch their missionary works since it was
the colony of the freed slaves. The Church Missionary Society (CMS) was the first missionary body to start work with the
freed slaves followed by the Wesleyan Methodist mission. The Moravians mission started works in South Africa, then
followed by the London Missionary Society and other missionary bodies came after them. Sierra Leon and Cape Province
in South Africa eventually became the two solidly established areas in Africa.

The missions went on to develop and establish settlements for the liberated African slaves, schools were set up to
introduce western education, others were also trained to be skill workers in different areas. One of the first educational
institutions that were established is the famous Fourah Bay College in Sierra Leone by the CMS and later on others
added to the number by the Wesleyan Mission.

Due to the success of the missionary works in Sierra Leone, the Methodist Episcopal Church went ahead to establish
themselves in Liberia and later the Gold Coast which is now called Ghana, this was between 1815-1840. The Basel
Mission also made their way into the inlands of Ghana and in 1834 the Wesleyans started works in Cape Coast and grew
inlands.

By 1840, missions were already well and firmly established in South Africa, Sierra Leone, The Gambia, Liberia, and the
coast of the Gold Coast. The mission in this period laid the foundation for the later great success of mission in Africa

In the 1840s, South Africa became the greatest progress for the Gospel, this missionary work were made by Scotsman,
David Livingstone. Livingstone was also able to explore the Gospel in southern and eastern Africa, they also established
church in Malawi in 1876.

In the era between 1878 and 1914, there was effective mission presence in countries like The Gambia, Liberia, Gold
Coast, Senegal, Togo, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Benin. Also in the southern and eastern Africa missionary progress took
place in countries like Basutoland, South Africa, Zambia, Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Zimbabwe. In that era the
trajectory history of planting Christianity in Africa was unpredictable. In that era of 1815 to 1840 the missionary work
met many obstacles, hostility from slave traders, opposition from various ethnic groups and the inhospitable climate
which took its toll on the missionaries.
There was an encounter between Christianity and Traditional Culture because the spread of Christianity in Africa
through mainly the 19th century movement brought missionary Christianity face to face with African traditional religion
and cultural institutions. The Western Europeans made it seem impossible for one to be a Christian and an African the
same time. They described African culture as primitive and one was reject the African culture before one could become
a Christian and western. They set strict rules for the new converts to deter from falling back into African culture which
they defined ungodly and inhuman. There came a question of how can become a Christion and an African the same
time, this led to a version of Christianity known as the African Christianity. And responses to this central question have
given rise to African Christian in the missionary churches such as Presbyterians, Mehodists, Roman Catholics , Anglicans
and Baptist. They quietly succumbed to the view that Christianity was some how incompatible with African culture. The
missionaries were not telling them the whole truth about the Christian faith. There was a protest which fuelled the
translation of the Bible into various African languages. The translation enabled African converts to read the Bible for
themselves and this allowed them to interpret the bible from their own perspectives as Africans. This led to the
discovery of many continuities between the Bible and African culture. The discovery led to the emergence of what has
been described as the African Indigenous churches(AICs). These churches express themselves in different forms
depending on their theological persuasion, but what binds them together is their attempt to interpret the Christian faith
from an African perspective that address their needs and concern. The movement that brought the indigenous African
Churches into being has helped the renewal of Christianity in Africa and transformed Christianity in Africa into a religion
that has answers to the needs of African Christians, needs and concerns that were hitherto absent from the missionary
agenda of salvation.

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