The Missionary Factor In East Africa

The Making of Mission Communities in East Africa calls into question a number of common assumptions about the encounter between European missionaries and African societies in colonial Kenya. The book explores the origins of those communities associated with the Anglican Church Missionary Society from 1875 to 1935, examines the development within them of a "mission culture," probes their internal conflicts and tensions, and details their relationship to the larger colonial society. Professor Strayer argues that genuinely religious issues were important in the formation of these communities, that missionaries were ambivalent in their attitudes toward modernizing change and the colonial state alike, and that mission communities possessed substantial attractions even in the face of competition with independent churches. Dr. John Lonsdale of Trinity College, Cambridge has said that "It is a sensitive piece of revisionist history which breaks down the simple dichotomy of 'missions' and 'Africans' commonly found in earlier historiographies--and even in the period of profound crisis over female circumcision in Kikuyuland. In this, Professor Strayer shows convincingly how mission communities could be preserved from destruction by principled divisions between Africans as much as between their white missionaries. He has pursued themes rather than events and has therefore been able to make remarkably intimate observations of mission communities which were following their own internal patterns of growth, yet within the context of a deepening situation of colonial dependence.

A History of Christianity in East Africa, gives a general survey of the Global South Christianity phenomenon, examining its trends and implications for Christian denominations. The book also surveys the beginning and development of Christian missions in the three East African countries-Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda. Reading a fascinating account of how Christianity was planted in this region confirms the promise of Christ that He would be with His people always to the end of the age. This brief study relates stories of the interactions between missionaries-most of whom were foreigners, and Africans-all of whom were indigenous. It is the story of foreign missionary societies that sent missionaries to towns and villages in East Africa. The author argues that any history of East Africa that does not take into consideration the place of Christian missions in the region is not only incomplete but also blind.

A study tracing the relationships between missionaries and African Church workers in Kenya in the years 1850-1900, as missionaries increasingly adopted imperial assumptions of Western superiority. It tells the story of the first Anglican clergy in Kenya, their wives and colleagues; their rescue from slavery, their education in India and their subsequent work in East Africa. It demonstrates their contribution to the rapid growth of the Church and of indigenous Christian communities. Yet later missionaries were not willing to accord to the Africans the position they had a right to expect. The book recounts their protest and the development of a Church order. Similar events in West Africa have been documented, but this is the first time such a pattern in East Africa has been outlined.