be mere trifles without meaning (1997, 238).
Casalis‘ words here suggest two interrelated issues. First, if there were religious beliefs and practices among the Basotho, their outward manifestations seemed so mundane that Casalis and other European observers could not distinguish them from other everyday activities. Perhaps this is why Casalis writes, in his account of his arrival among the Basotho, that:
It was no easy matter to make these heathen – absorbed as they were with material things – feel the benefit they would derive, in a temporal point of view, from the diffusion of Christian doctrines (1997, 15).
Casalis seems, here, to suggest that the Basotho had no sense of the spiritual or transcendent. This, contra Willoughby, as quoted in Setiloane (1975, 224):
Bantu life is essentially religious . . . Religion so pervades the life of the people that it regulates their doing and governs their leisure to an extent that it is hard for Europeans to imagine. Materialistic influences from Europe are playing upon Africa at a thousand points and may break up Bantu life, but the Bantu are hardly likely to be secularised, for they will never be contented without a religion that it not able to touch every phase of life and to interpret the divine in terms of humanity.
Setiloane continues: ―The Sotho-Tswana are Bantu. The same claim has been made on their behalf by many others.‖34 Machobane asserts that the nonmaterialistic nature of Basotho was an important fact for some missionaries:
On the whole missionaries thought Basotho traditions were admirable. Nor did they miss the points of difference between Western and African values. Among those was the fact that Basotho were noticeably non-materialistic. Missionaries were hopeful that the disposition might facilitate missionary work (2001, 22).
The second issue regarding Casalis‘ inability to understand the nature and function of Sesotho vis- à-vis the numinous is implied by his comment that the actions which might have provided clues about this ―have remained unintelligible to all except initiated persons.‖ As Machobane (2001, 23- 24) suggests:
The other problem is that, by their admission, missionaries found Africans reluctant to reveal their religious beliefs. There was always a danger that Africans might choose to tell missionaries what missionaries wanted to hear, and not the actual facts. . . . The institution of initiation, for instance, which played a pivotal role in the transmission of culture and religion, prohibited the uninitiated from knowing how the institution conducted its affairs. As a result, Europeans were unable to get first hand information from them.
Much of what Gill describes as the ―uneasiness‖ of the church today seems connected to the misunderstandings and misappropriations of the early missionaries. Basotho, then as now, had complex, important, and integrated understandings, beliefs, and practices that were a part of the
34 Setiloane‘s footnote: ―E.g. Casalis, E.W. Smith among the missionaries; and non-missionaries like Ashton, Schapera, Sheddick, Theal.‖ It is instructive that Setiloane lists Casalis as a missionary that made claims about the integrated nature of Sotho religion. It is this very integration that seems to perplex and challenge Casalis, causing him to suggest the possibility that the Basotho are atheist, and to state that their absorption with the material might serve as a hindrance to Christian indoctrination.
very fabric of their lives. These practices were not exhibited in ways Europeans recognised as
―religious,‖ and some of the most important rituals were not publicly performed or discussed.
Discussions around questions of Christianity and Sesotho in the Lesotho Evangelical Church today, it seems, must take into account this history of misunderstanding.
The Challenges and the Need for Humility
Gill‘s final categories for consideration include challenges for Christian missionaries currently working in Lesotho, and for Basotho Christians. The colonial and missionary legacy of Lesotho is complex, and requires attention and reflection. Gill, following John V. Taylor‘s (1963) argument about the issues involved and necessity of care when entering into another‘s world, writes:
Entering into another man‘s [sic] world takes years. Casalis and his colleagues seemed to know that better than the missionaries of today. If today‘s missionaries hope to be more effective than their predecessors, they cannot hope to do so until they take the time needed to wrestle with and appreciate deeply Africa‘s traditions and strengths, and her yearning for wholeness. Entering into another man‘s [sic]
world also means becoming sensitive to the issue of cultural imperialism (1997, 39).
Gill raises two important issues: First, he acknowledges that ―worlds‖ (perhaps as worldviews)35 exist, and that negotiating and understanding differences in worldviews takes time and effort – time and effort that cannot be minimalized or overlooked. ―Worlds‖ – cultures – are more than academic conceptualisations, they represent authentic contexts within which people live and experience reality. Lamin Sanneh (1993, 149) remarks on the importance of both Christianity and culture: ―I am concerned not only to safeguard the authority of Christ but the authenticity of culture as well.‖ Second, he raises the important issue of ―cultural imperialism.‖ As has been noted already, not only have missionaries over the years behaved as if their cultures were superior to the cultures they encountered, they have used specifically militaristic imagery and language (e.g.,
35 David Bosch (1995, 49) following Olthius (1991, 4f) writes that,
Worldviews are integrative and interpretive frameworks by which order and disorder are judged, they are the standards by which reality is managed and pursued, sets of hinges on which all our everyday thinking and doing turns. . . . A worldview, moreover, functions both descriptively (it tells us what is or what is not the case) and normatively (it tells us what might or ought not be the case). It is both a sketch of and a blueprint for reality, a vision of life and for life (:5).‖
Bosch‘s use of ―worldview‖ here, is functionally similar to what Marcus Borg (2006, 78) has called a ―social world.‖ I will be drawing on both Bosch‘s and Borg‘s notions as I refer to issues of ―culture‖ in the chapters to follow. Borg writes:
―Social World‖ is an important and illuminating shorthand term. It refers to the social environment of a particular time and place. It basically means the same as ―culture,‖
understood as everything that humans add to nature. It is the social canopy under which people live. A very comprehensive term, it includes political and economic systems, codes of behavior and convention, understandings of what is real and how to live, religious traditions and practices, language, technology, and more. . . . The social world in which we live pervasively shapes us. Growing up, socialization, means internalizing the understandings of life operative in our social world. It means being sufficiently shaped by our social world so that we know how to live in it.
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―conquest,‖ ―conquer‖) to describe Christianity‘s interaction with new cultures. Missionaries, then, have participated in what Paulo Freire has called ―cultural invasion‖:
The theory of antidialogical action has one last fundamental characteristic: cultural invasion, which like divisive tactics and manipulation also serves the ends of conquest. In this phenomenon, the invaders penetrate the cultural context of another group, in disrespect of the latter‘s potentialities; they impose their own view of the world upon those they invade and inhibit the creativity of the invaded by curbing their expression (1999, 133).
This ―cultural invasion‖ has been a part of the Christian missionaries‘ interaction with Basotho from the very first encounter, and it is pervasive.36 Its presence and reality in Lesotho and other places today call for vigilance and care as theological and cultural conversations continue. As Freire has written:
Cultural invasion is on the one hand an instrument of domination, and on the other, the result of domination. Thus, cultural action of a dominating character (like other forms of antidialogical action), in addition to being deliberate and planned, is in another sense simply a product of oppressive reality (1999, 135).
In reflecting on these important issues of the impact on Lesotho of the legacy of missionaries like Casalis and others over nearly two centuries, Gill remains hopeful about the ways in which Christianity in Lesotho can grow and strengthen as a uniquely Sesotho expression of the faith. For Basotho, he lists the challenge of, ―re-evaluating the traditional heritage of their forefathers [sic] and its relationship to the teachings of Jesus Christ‖ (1997, 40). Gill cautions that this will take time – perhaps ―generations.‖ Gill ends his essay with a call for humility by those who will participate in the ongoing conversations and struggles around the meaning of the legacies of those who have gone before us in Lesotho, and those who will envision and create the church of the future. Gill calls, as well, for a church-wide conversation about the important issues of faith and culture:
A much more serious dialogue is needed today, and one which tries to avoid the simple cliches [sic] and half-truths by which we reinforce our own prejudices instead of gaining new insight and understanding. This dialogue must not involve intellectuals only, but rather the whole church. If this essay serves as a stimulus to more exploration and dialogue on these themes of faith and culture, then it will have served its purpose well (1997, 42-43).
One key way to move forward, engaging one another in this humble dialogue, would be to take great care around how we conceptualise the call of the gospel. Surely, if the gospel is a weapon of conquest – something we use to ensnare and control other human beings – then we will continue to do violence to people, cultures, and faiths. But the gospel has also been conceptualised as an invitation to live in response to a gracious reality; as Kwame Bediako (2004, 38) has written, regarding biblical revelation, it is ―not just truth to be ‗believed in‘ as by mere intellectual or mental
36 ―Cultural invasion‖ is in no way limited to Christianity – especially in this moment of globalization.
Christianity in Lesotho has been, however, and continues to be, an important purveyor of this type of what Freire calls ―violence,‖ writing that, ―Whether urbane or harsh, cultural invasion is thus always an act of violence against the persons of the invaded culture, who lose their originality, or face the threat of losing it‖
(1999, 133).
assent; it is truth to be ‗participated in‘.‖ As Christians in Lesotho, and those who would be their partners in faith, focus upon participating together in what the gospel is for them, new possibilities for life together will no doubt arise. This participation, if it is taken seriously, will be life affirming and community building. So Sanneh (2003, 45): ―The individual act of conversion is not a rejection of community but the occasion for community.‖ If we take this seriously, the condescending, bifurcated understanding of society, in which there are ―insiders‖ and ―outsiders,‖
―Christians‖ and ―heathens‖ might perhaps become a more unified (though not uniform) expression of human community with a genuine concern for the expression and sharing of the gospel.
According to David Bosch (1991, 378), ―…the church may never function as a fearful border guard, but always as one who brings good tidings (Berkouwer 1979:162). Its life-mission vis-à-vis the world is a privilege (cf. Rom 1:5).‖
Colonialism and Representation
As important, well-researched, and well-intentioned as are Gill‘s assertions about the legacy of Casalis and other foreign missionaries in Lesotho with regard to Christianity and culture in Lesotho today, Gill himself, though he has lived for decades in Lesotho, and is well-respected by Basotho throughout the nation, is a white, North American male. As much as Gill writes in critique of the cultural invasion and the complexities of its legacy, he is also a part of this ongoing legacy.
Foreigners – mostly white, and usually male, have been telling the ―story‖ of Lesotho and its cultural37 journey and expressions since Casalis and his colleagues first began sending letters back to France for publication in Journal des Missions Evangéliques (JME). Though often these representations of Lesotho and Basotho were limited and limiting, and sometimes they were compassionate and well-meaning, they were always the story of Basotho being told by nonBasotho, often for a nonBasotho audience.38 Such has been the case regarding ―histories‖ and other studies (some fictionalised, some better researched than others) of Lesotho (including the PEMS mission and church), and, especially, Moshoeshoe (e.g., J.M. Orpen (1857) 1979; J. Widdicombe 1891; G.
Lagden 1909; D.F. Ellenberger 1912; H. Ashton 1967; P. Becker 1969; I. Hammnet 1975; P.
Sanders 1975, 2000; L. Thompson 1975; S. Burman 1981; C. Murray 1981; R. Edgar 1988; E.
Eldredge 1993, 2007; S. Gill 1993; S. Rosenberg 1998; M. Epprecht 2000; S. De Clark 2000;
Couzens 2003; inter alia). Of course, Basotho and other Africans have been thinking about and responding to issues of Basotho culture and Christianity and culture in Lesotho for over 175 years,
37 Here I mean ―culture‖ in the broad, comprehensive sense described in Bosch and Borg‘s definitions of
―worldview‖ and ―social world,‖ respectively (see footnote above).
38 So Tshehla (2009, 53): ―. . . the before-, during- and after- Moshoeshoe story of the Basotho thus rapidly became and has in the main remained the expertise of the baruti and interested colonial agents or explorers and their descendants.‖ ―The world‘s perception of the Basotho,‖ writes Tshehla, have been shaped by their
―authorised pieces.‖ Again, Tshehla, (2009, 62): ―But the point is that, by and large, twentieth century authorities on the Basotho story were not the Basotho, and their anticipated primary audience also was not the Basotho.‖ Also Maluleke:
Evidently, therefore, the concerns of these pioneers [European missionaries] were not in the first instance directed at understanding the African for either the African‘s or understanding‘s sake, but for the benefit of the work of colonials and missionaries. Our suggestion is that when Africans entered the discussion it was questions of identity and integrity that propelled them and only secondarily those of Christian mission and colonial presence (2001, 29)
40
as well. Just a few early and twentieth and twenty-first century examples of these writings include, A. Sekese (1908) 1978; G. Setiloane 1976; J.M. Mohapeloa 1985; T.L. Manyeli 1995; F.C.L.Rakotsoane 2001; L.B.B.J. Machobane and T.L. Manyeli 2001; L.M. Ngoetjana 2002; Tshehla 2009.
As Tshehla‘s 2009 PhD thesis makes abundantly clear, it is not that Basotho have not been thinking and writing about issues of Christianity and Sesotho. Tshehla‘s project, an investigation of selected writings by Basotho in Leselinyana la Lesotho, the newspaper of the Kereke ea Basutoland (and today of the LEC), from 1863 to 1883, had as one of its goals, ―to popularise these earliest writings by the Basotho‖ (2009, 1). In his introductory argument critiquing historical projects that have failed to access or have ignored Sesotho sources altogether, he suggests that this lack of attention to Sesotho sources continues. He writes of Sybil de Clark‘s (2000) doctoral thesis:
Case in point, in her well-argued doctoral work, The Evangelical Missionaries and the Basotho, 1833-1933, Sybil de Clark sought to appraise ―how the Basotho received and, especially, understood Christian concepts, beliefs and practices, as well as how their attitude and views evolved over time‖ (2000:13) Her ―focus on the evolution of Sotho perception and understanding of Christian notions, as well as on Sotho attitudes towards the missionaries‘ Christianity‖ (2000:i) surely benefited from consultations (interviews) with modern-day Basotho respondents (informants).
Yet it was equally undermined by her conviction that ―missionary accounts are the most direct evidence of these Basotho‘s perceptions, and as such they constitute invaluable data which should be taken seriously‖ (2000:16, my italics) notwithstanding her self-acknowledged incapacity, as a Belgian, to consult the nineteenth century Sesotho writings for herself (2009, 77).
Tshehla‘s attention to these Basotho voices from the nineteenth century is an important (and long overdue) beginning of the engagement of present-day readers with the thought of these early Basotho Christians. As Tshehla rightly points out throughout his thesis, however, fully direct access to the arguments and perceptions of Basotho is continually compromised by the fact that these submissions were subject to the editorial decisions of European editors, and that many of these submissions are relegated to brief sections containing ―letters.‖ Additionally, these writings occurred in the milieu of a colonial presence of Europeans, that coloured and shaped power relations, economic transactions, political decisions, and religious discussions in myriad ways.
This is not to say, however, that Basotho were not affecting the life and thought of their European interlocutors in important and meaningful ways. Tshehla‘s findings clearly demonstrate fault lines and contours of some of these ongoing cultural discussions. As the Comaroffs have asserted throughout their writings about the interactions among the Nonconformist missionaries and the Southern Tswana in the nineteenth century, the communications and the relationships were never unidirectional:
We argued, as we do in our earlier work, that the colonial evangelists were constantly diverted from their religious, cultural, political, and social objectives by African interventions of one kind or another; that European ways and means were repeatedly appropriated, refashioned, and put to their own ends by Southern Tswana (1997, 37).
Notwithstanding the real and decisive involvement of Basotho voices and actors, European (and later North American), white, usually male actors have participated arrogantly in writing, telling, and focussing the story of the Lesotho Evangelical Church since 1833. This has been as true in theological education and the life and work of Morija Theological Seminary as it has been in any other area of the Church‘s life. Review of minutes of faculty meetings and other MTS documents reveals that, at the level of the day to day activities and classroom teaching at the seminary, (usually white, male) expatriates have been active in the preparation and delivery of the various facets of theological education at MTS throughout its history. As can be seen from the discussion of the LEC‘s reflections about theological education from the 1970s to the present, expatriate voices were often foregrounded, and, in the MTS documentary record, at least, Basotho concerns seem understated, at best. The seminary has also often relied upon expatriate
―missionaries‖ to serve as instructors, in large part because of the dearth of Basotho ministers in the LEC with formal theological training beyond their MTS diplomas. As of 2007 only one ordained LEC Mosotho held a doctoral degree in an area of theology or ministry.39
Given the ways in which theological education and theological conversations in the LEC have been affected, for good and for ill, by nonBasotho for the entire history of Christianity in Lesotho, I am circumspect, to say the least, about my position as a theological educator, researcher, and conversation partner in the context of the Lesotho Evangelical Church. As a white male from the United States I represent, in many respects, a long and difficult history of colonising influence in Lesotho. Additionally, my own theological background (as a USA-educated liberal Protestant), and cultural moorings are decidedly foreign to Lesotho. Important questions, then, in the presentation of this thesis, include questions of voice (how will I name and claim my unique voice in the midst of presenting ―findings‖?); and representation (what does it mean to, in some way, represent others, in the telling of a story – especially during an historical moment in which it is more clear than ever that representations are often fraught with difficulties – colonial, epistemological and otherwise?). Here I mean ―epistemological‖ in the broadest sense that no one approaches any topic or ―text‖ without engaging in a complex (and often not consciously articulated) process of negotiating meaning through a variety of ―fore-understandings.‖ Both knowing the self and the Other are tasks of a sophisticatedly hermeneutic nature. So Gadamer (2004, 270):
But understanding reaches its full potential only when the fore-meanings that it begins with are not arbitrary. Thus it is quite right for the interpreter not to approach the text directly, relying solely on the fore-meaning already available to him, but rather explicitly to examine the legitimacy – i.e., the origin and validity – of the fore- meanings dwelling within him.
39 A. M. Moseme, the Director of the seminary for over twenty years, holds a Doctor of Ministry from Louisville Theological Seminary in the United States. B.M. Kometsi, in 2007, the Executive Secretary of the LEC, and a former instructor at MTS, was the only other LEC ordained minister enrolled in a programme of theological study at the doctoral level – a DTh (Old Testament) at the University of South Africa. One other LEC ordained minister, P. M. Moshoeshoe, was, in 2010, admitted to the University of KwaZulu Natal as a PhD student (New Testament). Moshoeshoe has since left Lesotho to serve at Kgolagano College in Botswana.