A “Native Ministry” for God's “Step Children”? The Evolution of Missional Policy toward the Zulu in the Anglican Diocese of Natal, South Africa: 1904-1917

Abstract

This article examines the evolution of the Anglican missionary policy and the evangelization of the Zulu in the Diocese of Natal in South Africa during the early 20th century. These processes rested on colonial power in the form of what Edward Said1 conceptualized as Orientalism. Orientalism defined and ordered relations of domination and subordination wherein the English missionaries, considering themselves as superior, justify their actions as imparting what they saw as civil and religious benefits on the Zulu, whom they regarded as not possessing them. Contemptuous settler attitudes toward missionary work and their relations with the Zulu also undermined missionary work in Natal. The evolution of missionary policy along racial lines developed from the Orientalist worldview as well as on account of relations that developed in the colony.