Christianity, Historiography in Africa

Two authoritative books have recently appeared on this subject, both of which include detailed guides to source material. Hastings’ The Church in Africa, which ends in 1950, focuses on black Africa; it excludes the early church and the Egyptian Coptic church, but gives a detailed account of Ethiopian church history. Isichei, A History of Christianity in Africa, covers these areas which Hastings excludes, and ends in 1995.

The modern missionary movement in Africa began in the nineteenth century, but with some exceptions, such as the Creoles of Freetown and the kholwa(Believers) of Natal, its impact was insignificant until the twentieth. Paradoxically, however, much of the literature on missions deals with this earlier period, which is richly documented in the unpublished letters, journals, and memoirs of those concerned. Writing on missions has often been profoundly Eurocentric – the white missionary is the heroic actor against a background of indigenous peoples who are either...