The Roots of the Presbyterian Church of Kenya: The Merger of the Gospel Missionary Society and the Church of Scotland Mission Revisited

Abstract

The Presbyterian Church of Kenya is the product of the merger of the missionary work of the American Gospel Missionary Society (GMS) and the Scottish Church of Scotland Mission (CSM) in 1946. The two missions had been working independently of each other in central Kenya since 1898. However, there is hardly any scholarly work that has analysed the merger. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to examine why the GMS‐CSM merger became necessary from a GMS perspective. The paper argues that the merger became inevitable and unavoidable because the GMS was unable to solve the problems that plagued it — some of its own making and others beyond its control. The paper concludes by showing that the CSM emerged as the beneficiary of the merger because it eventually assimilated the GMS work.