Chapter 6 Chapter 6
3. THE PRESENTATION OF THE CONCEPTS OF THE CHRISTIAN
3.2.1. Search for Land, Labor and Trade
Christianity existed from first century Palestine and operated from the religious culture of Judaism. As time went on, the face and content of Christianity took on the situational matrix in which it was operating. During the times of the emergence of Christian missions, Christianity was deeply influenced by people who were hungry to open new commercial markets. These voyages and adventurous enterprises were also for the advancement of British commercial enterprise and the spread of the Christian religion. The Christian religion did not play a minor role in these military and economic expeditions.
The Christian God, it will be shown throughout this thesis, has been at the forefront of the conquest and the pacification of unsuspecting indigenous peoples, who were coerced into accepting mercantile economic systems.
Though with much resistance, the Africans gave way as they were subjugated to accept the new status quo. At that time Africans had no means of
determining the full economic implications of the act of accepting the Christian religion and the Christian God (Majeke 1952: 70). The missionary-evangelists of Christianity,
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... spoke freely about heaven and hell, [and about God] but its roots
were planted firmly in the capitalist civilization of their masters, an industrial civilization that was sending its many agents into Africa, Asia and India in the search for new markets and new raw materials, for new lands to conquer and countless Black hands to labor for it.
Christianity itself was an ideological weapon of what was called 'Western Civilization' (Majeke 1952: 70 addition mine).
Besides speaking freely of heaven and hell, the missionary-evangelists spoke freely about God and war. This they did in African cultures which would avoid speaking so openly and so freely about such threatening items (God and war).
The Portuguese demonstrated the same blend of religious and political motives that characterized the Crusades. The conquest of land, the colonization of the peoples and the acquisition of new areas for trade were all held to forward the interests of God and Christendom, since they were to be the means whereby Saracens and pagans and other unbelievers inimical to Christ were to be brought under the rule of Christ (Bediako 1997: 40).
Although Chidester (1996: 14) sees the encounter of Africans with British capitalism from the perspective of interreligious confrontation, he does assent to the fact that the denial of the indigenous religion by colonizers was one way in which the denial of concepts of land, labor and trade, according to the practices of the indigenous people, could be understood. The African idea of land ownership, in particular, was that though the land was in the custody of the Chief, it belonged ultimately to MOD/MO.
In other words, the land could not be owned by individuals by title deed. Both the Africans and the colonialists had a vested interests in the land, including the water resource, labor and trade. This was a struggle for political autonomy and legitimacy. The fact that 'people were found without religion' signified and justified their dehumanization and, therefore, their subjection to land
dispossession, labor exploitation and unacceptable trade exchange (Chidester 196: 14).
Merensky's view was that the establishment of reserves and locations for Africans was justified. He favored the allocation of gardens for African farm laborers. He favored the levying of taxes to encourage diligence, judicial protection, and spiritual and material development (Moila 1987: 38).
3.2.2. Chidester and Majeke's Configuration of the Missionary Mind- Frame
Majeke (1952) configures the missionary mind-frame as that of conquest of people in foreign lands. The conquest Majeke (1952) speaks about is that of the land and the introduction of British mercantile economy. This was a new form of economy which was brewing in the industrial revolution. Chidester (1991) sees the missionary mind-frame as that of cultural exchange. He implies that the indigenous people who were being conquered were not neutral. The indigenous people also had an impact on the ideas and actions of the
missionaries and colonialism.
In order to understand the configuration of the missionary mind-frame we need to look at the theories which informed the missionaries and which
consolidated their misguided picture of other peoples and of their lifestyles. It is because of the influence ofthis mind-frame that the missionaries caused damage and resentment towards Christian mission work amongst Africans. It is not sufficient to say the missionaries were 'children of their age' and not to expose what that age entailed and stood for. This exercise is the continuation of the unfolding of the missionary mind-frame. This mind-frame included their attitude toward the indigenous religious ideas (concepts of God, in particular).
In this section of the unfolding of the theories which informed missionary attitudes and activities in relation to African people, in addition to Majeke (1952) and Chidester (1996), other theologians and writers were involved.
This exercise is undertaken to understand further why mission and colonialism were, by and large, comprehended as the same project, though not all
proponents of the 'good work' done by missionaries agree.
3.2.2.1. The Theory of One Religion
In this subsection I will confine myself to the exploration of several theories which were operational in the minds of the missionaries and other agents of colonialism in the mission of the Christian God. This is what formed a corpus of knowledge and lenses through which the missionaries saw other people.
These theories were applied in various contexts of the encounter between mission and indigenous people in strange lands (Africans included), which
... appeared in travel literature as objects for conquest and subjects for representation. Their discovery, or invention, reinforced - or perhaps actually constituted - the notion of Europe by centering and surrounding it within a strange periphery (Chidester 1996: 6)
Out of the reports which were sent to Europe by explorers, travelers,
missionaries and so on concerning indigenous people, a cast and a frame of mind were created that the salvation of the indigenous people was dependent on their being conquered and subjected to Western civilization and Christian religion. The indigenous people were seen as subjects of conquest and not as fellow humans who can, together with the European explorers, civilizers and missionaries, create a world in which all can live in peace under the rule of God or the divine.
The reports gave the impression that the people ofthe 'New World' could not represent themselves but could only be represented by Europeans. That meant that these people could not stand for themselves regarding anything in life _ politics, religion, commerce and so on, but had to be assisted by Europeans. In
other words, a people which were naturally deprived and depraved had been discovered.
Influenced by religious motives and coloured by particular Christian assumptions about the efficacy of Satan, the missionary Robert Moffat (for example) nevertheless advanced a general theory of the history of religions. In the beginning, he proposed, there was one religion. Through a long, gradual process of historical diffusion, a process determined, in Moffat's reading, by Satanic influence, the one had become many; the religions of the world had proliferated
(Chidester 1991: 190, addition mine).
Other religions were put in a position where they were presented as enemies of Christ. These were the enemies with which missions should wrestle, struggle, and toil to eradicate, to extract, to pull down, as the strongholds of Satan. The missionaries were to set free the adherents and proponents of other religions from the darkness of their minds and the sorry situation into which their beliefs had plunged them (Chidester 1991: 191).
Instead of tracing the many religions of the world back to innate, intuitive, or natural religious ideas, Moffat derived religion from primordial revelation. In the beginning, the revealed truth of religion was transmitted both in oral tradition and writing. However, Satan intervened to distort revelation. As a result of Satanic influence, the original revealed religion degenerated by stages, on a continuum from the refined Greek paganism, through the proliferation of polytheism and idol worship in India and China, to the barbaric religions of the most savage people around the world ... (Chidester 1991: 190).
Regarding the Bechuana [sic], more specifically, in southern Africa as
recorded by Chidester (1991: 191), it was said that they were people without theological ideas or religion. It was understood that their lack of religion was an obstacle and a structural barrier to the advancement of Christian
colonization and mission. As a result, it led to an understanding that, in order for missions to succeed among Africans, they must be marauded and
overcome through the vehement opposition of their cultural practices.
So, the one true religion the missionaries referred to was the Christian religion.
This religion came in full force and under the conviction that it was the only, one, true, and original religion sanctioned by the 'true Christian God'. This religion, it was said, had to be accepted universally, and no other allegedly 'false religion' would be allowed to stand in competition with or to coexist with it. On arrival in foreign lands, the missionaries had this kind of thought.
They approached the African people with an assumption that the Christian religion was the only, one, true and original religion.
This attitude of 'one true religion' fermented hostility and antagonism against the local religions. The history of the BMS missionary enterprise among the Pedi was characterized by " ... the missionaries' eagerness to destroy Pedi customs. They were not merely hostile to these customs, but also worked against everything that can be recognized as custom or religion" (Moila 1987: 113 ).
3.2.2.2. The Theory of a Religious Vacuum
Further, as propounded by the missionaries among the Sotho-Tswana, as Chidester (1991: 186) explains, was the theory of a religious vacuum. This theory suggested that these people were a religious wasteland and were susceptible to being filled by the truth of the 'gospel' they so desired to receive, to enlighten their minds. This theory suggested a total absence of religion among the Sotho-Tswana and, thus, they were seen as a peculiar brand of people when compared with other 'pagan' nations and 'idol-worshipers'. It was alleged they had nothing and did nothing which resembled religion in their social system. The missionaries said that African religions were 'like the
streams in the wilderness, which lose themselves in the sand, and had entirely disappeared' (Chidester 1991: 186).
They lacked any of the familiar, expected features of 'pagan' or 'heathen'religion. In dramatic, highly charged images, Moffat tried to evoke for his readers the unique situation of a Christian missionary who was faced with such a remarkable religious vacuum (Chidester
1991: 186).
In other words, there was discovered among the Sotho-Tswana, a people with no point of connection with the gospel. The missionaries found no reference from which to commence the introduction of the higher notion of the Christian God. No religious idea could be identified. All talk about God was beyond the comprehension of the people the missionaries found themselves amongst, as Comaroffand Comaroffalso observed (1991: 200).
This theory ofa religious vacuum concurs with that of the 'Empty-land' (discussed below). Common among colonizers was the idea that the lands they scourged, corroded, wiped out and depopulated had not been occupied before.
It was alleged and believed that the remnants they left over, for the supply of labor, had migrated from elsewhere and were not the original or the legitimate owners of the land. These, it was alleged, were slaves which had migrated from 'elsewhere'. These slaves would serve well in the new capitalist society that had been introduced among the 'savages'.
3.2.2.3. The Theory of Empty-land
According to Setiloane (1976: 19) and Comaroffand Comaroff(1991: 207) the missionaries portrayed an image of Africa as a wasted garden, a desert. The picture was that of a land never tilled since the Christian God created it.
Where there were Africans occupying this alleged wasteland, which was virtually empty in the missionaries' sight, these Africans were depicted as
'dessiccationists' [which means 'to dry out']- people who spoil the land, cause soil erosion, who have no idea of farming but just break up the land for no reason.
Missionaries gave the idea that Africans had no sense of the value of land and of commercial farming methods. It was described that the Africans had caused the land to be a desolate vineyard and that they had to be stopped from
continuing to do that, for the welfare of all (Africans and Europeans). In retrospect, certainly, this was not for the well-being or welfare of the African people. In his rebuttal of this gloomy picture of the relationship of Africans to the land, Setiloane says:
All we need to establish ... , however, is that, contrary to ideas lately propagated by some new historical outlook, seeking to fix the claims of the white man in southern Africa today, the land was not an empty no-man's-land, teeming with game and unoccupied by man [sic] when the first Boer trekkers crossed the Orange River. Settled communities had lived there and conducted their affairs in a manner to them orderly and even civilized (Setiloane 1976: 19).
Chidester (1996: 15) gives another insight into this notion of 'empty land' or 'empty space' as he calls it. In his view, he sees it as a ploy intended as an encouragement to exterminate the peoples of strange lands in the name of colonization and conversion to the mission of the Christian God. This is how Chidester explains this phenomenon of 'empty land' or 'empty space':
By the nineteenth century, as the European colonization of Africa was underway, the denial of religion assumed another layer of significance by representing Africa paradoxically as both empty space and also an obstacle to conquest, colonization and conversion (Chidester 1996:
15)
3.2.2.4. The Theory of Four Religions in the World
Chidester (1996: 17) records that, during the eighteenth century, "European comparativists generally assumed that there were four religions in the world - Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Paganism, with the last sometimes divided into ancient, heathen, and diabolical forms" (Chidester 1996: 17)
It must have been a horrifying experience for missionary-colonialists to discover the plurality of religions of the new world. They could not contain them within their limited theories about other peoples. They were inevitably tempted to classify them as 'worship of the devil'. This was the case,
especially, among those peoples where there was undeniable evidence of the existence of religion.
Besides that, with those peoples the missionary-colonialists said had no religion, it was so because they could not relate to their religious systems in terms of what religion should entail. To the missionaries it must have been a cultural shock - a feeling of religious ignorance and destitution. They must have felt lost in that world. The best way to describe the situation was to paint a horrifying picture or to deny the existence of a legitimate religion among these 'strange people'.
For the missionaries in particular, the search for the 'unknown God' in Africa provided a charter for comparative religion. Defining the genus of religion in terms of worship, they found three species of religion in the world - the God worship of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam; the object worship of Pagans, whether it assumed the form of idol worship of Asia or fetish worship of West Africa; and the ancestor [ sic] worship of southern Africa, a species of religion defined by contrast with the other two (Chidester 1996: 27).
It was the so-called 'ancestor worship' which impressed itself on the minds of the missionary-colonizers as a unique religious phenomenon, in that in it there were no obvious or visible signs of religion - temples, shrines and so on, especially shrines for the so-called 'Supreme God' or 'High God' . That must have left the missionaries in a state of utter astonishment, in that they could not believe that there was so much religion among 'pagans' in any case. Chidester (1996: 27) says: ''Without any worship of a Supreme Being, and without any idols or fetishes, indigenous religions of southern Africa were defined as a unique type of religion devoted to worship of deceased ancestors".
3.2.2.5. The Theory of Euhemerism
The classification of the religions of southern Africa as 'ancestor worship' leads us to another theory held by missionaries concerning the religions of the world and that is the theory ofEuhemerism - of the elevation and deification of ancient heroes. This Chidester (1991: 184 - 6) extracts from the beliefs of Moffat:
In his reconnaissance of all the indigenous people of southern Africa,
Moffat found absolutely no religion. By explaining the 'Zoolah' (Zulu) sacrifices as celebrations of ancient heroes, however, Moffat did propose a theory of religion, the ancient theory of Euhemerism, which accounted for the origin of religion in the elevation of cultural heroes to divine status. According to Moffat, Euhemerism could explain any hint of worship that might be found among indigenous people of south em Africa (Chidester 1991: 185 - 186, addition mine).
The ancient heroes referred to are people like King Shaka, to mention one. If properly represented, he could have been rightly pictured as one African leader who led the greatest and the most organized political civilization the world has ever seen. His would be compared to the great empires such as in the times of Graeco-Macedonian and Roman rule.
But Shaka was not given these honours. Instead, he was demonized as one of the most cruel leaders southern Africa has ever produced. As Setiloane (1976) would agree, one of the praise names given to Shaka and all his successors is Silo (in Zulu), Selo (in Sotho), meaning - a person who deserves the greatest of honors from his subjects and not a dreadful, monstrous wild animal.
Besides this, Bediako (1997: 60) and Chidester (1996: 8) both hold that another theory which influenced the thinking of missionary colonialists was the theory of environmental orientation to which we now turn. This theory is about how the environment and climate affect the thinking and religious ideas of people.
3.2.2.6. The Theory of Environmental Orientation: Climatic Conditioning
According to Bediako (1997: 60) "There was little room for cultural diversity within the European Christian world-view. The assumption was that
European culture was the heir of an original cultural uniformity and that subsequent divergences were the result of a process of both diffusion and degeneration"
In other words, the notion of one original revealed religion brings to mind the idea that 'Ancestor Religion' is proof of degeneration of the European 'true' original religion. It was said in southern Africa there was no trace of this revealed religion. Apparently this original religion was totally dissipated and that, in other parts of Asia and so on, it had degenerated to idol worship. This religion had been kept pure in its original form in the Christian religion.
However, this theory cannot be subjected to authentic proof. The Christian religion as it stands now, and as it consisted in the past, has always been a syncretism of various divergent religious thoughts, theologies, and