Christian Missionaries
“My father, of course, was bringing the Word of God-
which fortunately weighs nothing at all.” (Kingsolver 19)
Missionaries from all faiths have traveled all over the world in attempts to show other peoples their ways. Christian missionaries in particular have struggled in their efforts to convert indigenous people. Simply bringing the Word of God, as Nathan Price does in The Poisonwood Bible, was and is not possible. With a conversion of faith comes an adoption of customs, morals, lifestyles, and even political views. Even though young Leah Price says that the Word of God weighed nothing, it was actually the heaviest burden the Price family carried with them on their journey. Every missionary who has brought the Word of God to the Congo region has been faced with many more challenges than they could have ever imagined.
The Poisonwood Bible provides a glimpse into each of the complex situations that are created due to missionary work in the Congo. It is the turning point for religious work in the nation and depicts the ongoing struggle between the Congo and the rest of the world. However, to fully understand the impact of missionary work in the Congo, the beginning as well as the future of this movement most also be examined.
The Congolese are a people who are rich in culture, very bright, and extremely diverse. For a long time, they were also regarded as being among the richest in natural resources until other countries exploited them. Africans in general had no need for prejudice, even when engaged in trade with other tribes or countries. Their practice of enslavement was merely a way to win a war or conflict. They treated slaves humanely. However, there was a great deal of m...
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...ze that the Congo had always been a bright nation on its own terms. Now, missionaries, not only in the Congo, but everywhere, are faced with the challenge to “walk forward into the light” with the people to which they are bringing the Word of God.
Bibliography:
RESOURCES CONSULTED
Democratic Republic of the Congo Consular Information. US Department of the State,
September 14, 1999.
Kingsolver, Barbara. The Poisonwood Bible. Harper Collins, New York, NY: 1998.
Missionary House Bombed. Independent Catholic News, Vol 2. 9 June 1997.
Myers Harrison, Eugene. A Light In The Congo Darkness. Scripture Press, Fairfax, VA:
1954.
Presentation by Dr. Nkuzi Nnam, 31 October 2000.
The International Ministries Website. http://www.internationalministries.org
The New American Bible. Devore & Sons, Witchita, Kansas: 2000.
Racism and slavery have always been a part of the world’s history, but sometimes people become ignorant to the severity of such mistreatment. This is proven in Adam Hochschild’s book King Leopold’s Ghost. People in Congo, Africa suffered many years of mistreatment brought on by King Leopold the second. King Leopold took what was theirs and made it his own by force and abuse. Eventually these people rightfully revolted in attempt to reclaim what is theirs and demand better treatment.
The Poisonwood Bible is a novel written by Barbara Kingsolver, portraying the life of the Price family, coming from Georgia to the Congo as a missionary family. By analyzing the cultural arrogance Kingsolver includes in the novel, it is possible to understand the many compositions the bring books, in relation to how the people live in comparison to different geographical and economical locations of the country, why certain things are necessary to happen and the relation of nature and man. Analyzing the cultural arrogance allows the readers to understand the two major perspectives in the book, and how they interact with each other.
Large-scale education and social consciousness may not be enough, though; even when the government becomes involved and offers a scholarship for Babamukuru and Maiguru to pursue higher education in South Africa, the missionaries feel a sense of entitlement to the natives’ bodies and minds and later coerce this same pair to continue their education in England. This lends itself to a description of “missionary goodwill as a form of benevolent tyranny” that works to alienate individual natives from others and prevent them from taking any sort of united stand (Paustian
The missionary expansion and their work within different nations is a dilemma of well intentions versus prosperity and power. Many missionaries remained out of politics and out of local culture and only served the communities for the better. They increased educational opportunities and provided medical care; most importantly they served to ensure the communities could actively participate in the international community. While the government and businesses reaped the rewards of increased prosperity and power, these rewards were in many ways not the purpose of missionary expansion but merely an outcome.
It is obvious that it was not the forced labor in Congo that caused massive uproar among Europeans and Americans, as forced labor was part of their history for centuries, but the extreme brutality that occurred there. However, the blatant disregard for human life was not unique to the Congo, and was found in many other European and American colonies. Characters such as E.D. Morel and Roger Casement publicized the horrors of the Congo, and it was spread throughout various countries. This was the first time that the “common” people were aware of the extent of the brutality and exploitation endured by
Nathan Price’s unapproachable and counterproductive attitude towards the people in the Congo have pushed not only the Congolese people away from believing in Jesus Christ but have also pushed his own daughters and wife away from Christianity to believing in
Reverend Josiah Strong's Our Country: Its Possible Future and Its Present Crisis inspired missionaries to travel to foreign nations.
In regards to race and class in Congo, I will refer to the work of Franz Fanon, in particular his book entitled The Wretched of the Earth. In this book Fanon develops a theory of “dual citizenship” required by the colonizers in order to validate the colonization process. We have to view the movie Lumumba as being part of the anti-colonial discourse in the history of the Congo but also as a historical fiction produced in 21st century France. In viewing this movie, we must locate race and class and the intersection between the two, as this is constantly the case in post-colonial states.
missionary trip despite the state of the Congo, felt that he would be able to convert its people
According to his book, Christianity is moving out of the global north and into the global south. In fact, Christianity is growing rapidly in countries such as Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He also writes about how Africa and Brazil will, within the next fifty years, replace Europe as the center of Christianity. Both of these countries have been heavily missionized within that past hundred years, and the number of Christians in each has raised millions. The expansion growth in these countries is due primarily to their high reproduction rates and their hunger for the Christian beliefs that the missionaries brought with them. Jenkins says in this book that the missionaries faced no problems trying to explain about a higher deity or other “bafflingly alien world views” to the Africans, because it followed closely with many of their own tribal beliefs. Many of the tribes worshiped one higher power already and also found that many of the Christian beliefs fell in sync with their own heritage and customs. They did though, encounter one problem: the beliefs fell so in sync with their tribal traditions, that eventually the African culture started to incorporate their customs such as exorcism, dream visions, prophesy, healing, and mysticism into their Christian churches, creating an entire sub group of Christianity. These sub groups are closely related to the more Pentecostal churches, but are far from the ritualistic practices of the Anglicans and Catholics that primarily missionized them.
To Europeans, African cultures and religions were degraded and in need of transformation. Several Catholics and Protestants traversed all across Africa, seeking to convert natives to Christianity and enlighten them with the Westerners' way of life.
From the outset we learn that the domination of a people is achieved in many ways, and that the abuses of the Congolese came in many forms. Absolute control of the national military was a central feature of conquest; in this context, Belgians stayed in command of the Force Republique, even after independence was declared. Africans were also pitted against each other by a strategically imposed hierarchical social system among the enslaved. African “masters” were thus compelled to participate in the subjugation of their fellow Africans, a system reminiscent of the divide-and-conquer strategies utilized against the enslaved in plantations stateside, such as we witnessed in the movie Sankofa. In fact, this forced enslavement, hard physical labor, social displacement, the separation of families, cultural domination, and dehumanization of whole populations should all be sadly familiar to Americans given their similar histories.
Imagine a group of foreign people invading your home, disavowing all your beliefs, and attempting to convert you to a religion you have never heard of. This was the reality for thousands and thousands of African people when many Europeans commenced the Scramble for Africa during the period of New Imperialism. A great fiction novel written by Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, highlights the responses to missionaries by African people. The African natives responded to the presence of white missionaries with submission to their desires, strategic responses to counteract them, and with the most disruptive response of violence.
Decisions, opinions, and beliefs become uncertain and doubt appears. Cultural values, that ware held for generations, are pitted against the missionary's sermons. Although the missionaries come with the desire and intention to help the underdeveloped Ibo village reach its pote...
“When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said “let us pray.” We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.”- Bishop Desmond Tutu.