The Missionaries and Africa
by Stanley Meisler
Commentary by Stanley Meisler
May 21, 1967
May 1967
Nairobi, Kenya
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NO LONGER PROSELYTIZER'S PARADISE - Independence in Africa has left the missionary far behind. While there are more missionaries in Africa now than ever before, they have less influence, power and privilege than ever before. Their great day is over. When missionaries first came to Africa in the 19th century, hacking their way through the brush in tse-tse fly and malaria country, the continent seemed to them a proselytizer's paradise - millions of black heathens wallowing in darkness, awaiting the light of western Christianity. Missionaries rushed in with light. In doing so, they often became the vanguard of imperialism. Missionary demands and needs were influential in persuading European powers to grab chunks of land in the scramble for Africa at the turn of the century. In later colonial days, missionaries dispensed the magic that enabled some Africans to adjust to the ways of the Europeans...
NO LONGER PROSELYTIZER'S PARADISE - Independence in Africa has left the missionary far behind. While there are more missionaries in Africa now than ever before, they have less influence, power and privilege than ever before. Their great day is over. When missionaries first came to Africa in the 19th century, hacking their way through the brush in tse-tse fly and malaria country, the continent seemed to them a proselytizer's paradise - millions of black heathens wallowing in darkness, awaiting the light of western Christianity. Missionaries rushed in with light. In doing so, they often became the vanguard of imperialism. Missionary demands and needs were influential in persuading European powers to grab chunks of land in the scramble for Africa at the turn of the century. In later colonial days, missionaries dispensed the magic that enabled some Africans to adjust to the ways of the Europeans...
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