African Christianity: from the world wars to decolonisation

Abstract

Introduction An exciting event occurred in 1969 when the pope visited Uganda. He told his hosts that ‘you must have an African Christianity. Indeed, you possess human values and characteristic forms of culture which can rise up to be capable of a richness of expression of its own, and genuinely African.’ The audience was stunned, as if he were reversing the story of centuries of European relationship with Africa; as if he were proclaiming release from a relationship that suffocated in favour of one that recognised the pluralistic context of mission. It was as if Europeans finally acknowledged that after many years of missionary presence, an African expression of Christianity had emerged. That speech turned attention from patterns of insertion to modes of appropriation and their consequences, especially as the numbers of Christians in Africa had grown enormously. Perhaps being a musical people, African responses to the pope’s declaration could be traced in various liturgical initiatives and musical symbols. It meant that the story of African encounter with the gospel should privilege African initiatives and yet be told in an ecumenical and irenic manner.