Abstract
This article examines ideas of morality and health, and connections between moral transgression and disease in both Scottish missionary and Central African thought in the context of the Livingstonia Mission of the Presbyterian Free Church of Scotland in Malawi during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. By concentrating on debates, conflicts and co-operation between missionaries and Africans over the key issues of beer drinking and sexual morality, this article explores the emergence of a new "moral hygiene" among African Christian communities in Northern Malawi.
Highlights
MARKKU HOKKANEN ween missionaries and Africans over the key issues of beer drinking and sexual morality, this article explores the emergence of a new ‘moral hygiene’ among African Christian communities in Northern Malawi
This article examines ideas of morality and health, and connections between moral transgression and disease in both Scottish missionary and Central African thought in the context of the Livingstonia Mission of the Presbyterian Free Church of Scotland in Malawi during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.[2]
Conflicts and co-operation between missionaries and Africans over the key issues of beer drinking and sexual morality, this article explores the emergence of a new ‘moral hygiene’ among African Christian communities in Northern Malawi
Summary
For missionary doctor Robert Laws, the long-serving leader of Livingstonia, the moral health of an individual was determined by nerves, mind, spirit and character, all of which were inseparably intertwined. Biological mechanisms that would explain all disorders, proponents of faith healing followed the holistic theory of health to the conclusion that the soul ruled the mind and the mind ruled the body.[3] Laws —who undertook his medical and theological studies at a time when these debates over mind and body were becoming increasingly intense— must be understood in this context. In his sermons to fellow missionaries in 1883 (after seven years in Central Africa that had been marked by high rates of mortality and morbidity) Dr Laws emphasized that physical illness sometimes affected the judgement of missionaries. Moral education and control were viewed as prerequisites for the practice of preventive medicine and the maintenance of health in Livingstonia.[12]
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