Medical Missions and Proselytisation: The Case of the Church of the Nazarene Medical Missions’ Proselytisation Activities in Swaziland, 1925–1968

Abstract

This article subscribes to the view that the provision of medical services along with the gospel to Africa was the work of both medical missionaries and African agents. Its central argument is that medical missionaries of the Church of the Nazarene enhanced proselytisation in Swaziland (present-day Eswatini) through the provision of medical care and the training of Swazi nurses who doubled as “nurse-evangelists.” The article explores the proselytisation strategies employed by the medical missionaries. These strategies included the use of medical missions as centres of proselytisation, and the training and use of Swazi nurses in proselytisation. The analysis of how nurses trained at Ainsworth Dickson Nurse Training School used their training demonstrates that although these African agents did not receive the heroic praise given to white medical missionaries, they instigated proselytisation especially in rural Swaziland in the period under review. Lastly, the article reveals that the training of Swazi nurses was evangelical and it examines how it affected the nurses’ work. Using narratives of lepers from the Mbuluzi Leper Hospital, the article illustrates the correlation between missionary medicine and proselytisation.