Biafra and the Canadian Churches, 1966-1970

Abstract

Much of the history of Africa has been written from a single perspective. Africa, in particular sub-Saharan Africa, is the recipient of the action. Actions initiated first by the slavers, then the colonizing nations, and more recently the commercial and industrial influences of the North. The First World is the subject of the sentence, while Africa remains the object. Little of African history has intentionally sought to turn that sentence around to make Africa the subject of the sentence and the First World the object upon which Africa has exercised influence and caused change. This paper suggests that Africa changed the Canadian church in the second half of the twentieth century. 1 This change was due not only to immigrants, like the Ghanians, coming to Canada, but was also the result of African events that influenced the thinking and action of Canadian churches. A rehearsal of some of the ways African issues have changed the Canadian church will act as proof of this point. The development of the Canadian Food Grains Bank, though not only a response to African food needs, was driven in part by events taking place in Africa. World Vision’s 30-Hour Famine transforms thousands of Canadian young people into advocates for the people of Africa and other people of the South. The Inter-Church Coalition on Africa has played a significant role both inside and outside the church. Church voices speaking at shareholders’ meetings, were first heard as the churches, along with others, demanded corporations and public institutions exercise ethical responsibility in relationship to the apartheid regime in South Africa. The furor, in the 1970s, around the World Council of Churches’ funding of the African National Congress, taught church leaders