The colonization of Africa greatly helped Christian missionaries to bring their faith to the African nations. As early as when the Dutch were settling in South Africa Christian missionaries took advantage of the political turmoil to bring people to the faith. They also used free education to promote the Christin faith believing “literacy, hard work, time consciousness, democracy, and self-discipline… necessary components of Christian living” (49). This also made them acceptable to the local governments as they brought a higher level of learning to the people for no charge. The African missionaries were even more important in this time though as they understood the cultures of their people and those such as Harris converted thousands of people. The AIC was also very important in this time and had a more African view of Christianity believing that “acceptability of polygamy,…importance of saints and ancestors,… miracles were common, and the significance of dreams and visions” (51)”. In the post-colonial age this unique African view of Christianity became even more important as many local leadership positions were filled by Africans as many missionaries fled during WWII. These churches were much more focused on the Holy Spirit of Christian faith. In 1971 Gatu called for the stop of all missionaries in Africa and while this did not happen it did signal to the West that Africa was becoming independent and no longer needed guidance from foreign missionaries. In fact they found that where indigenous religions were strong Christianity too flourished.

Ubuntu is a term that means ‘that every human life has value and that all human beings are interconnected”(64), this term has been very influential in helping Christians in war torn and apartheid ruled countries. In a way that is very different from how Western Christianity deals with problems, African Christianity focuses more on forgiving those who have wronged them and helping them heal their souls. In Liberia Christian women came together to stop the war and after to heal the souls of the children soldiers, who had done many crimes against them, in order to rebuild the lives of the children. In South Africa, Tutu stressed to his people the forgiveness of those who had committed crimes under apartheid. In this way Ubuntu helped to bring the communities in Africa back together and heal them fully as opposed to the continuation of violence.

The West has a lot to learn from African Christianity as it pertains to both persecution and forgiveness. While the West does not stand up well to times when they are emotionally being persecuted many in Africa risk their lives to be Christian and accept it willingly as part of the faith. African Christians also forgive those who have wronged them more readily, there was much less stress on forgiving the Nazis than there was forgiving those who took part in the apartheid and in the wars of northern Africa. African believers seem to walk closer in the faith than those in the West, and develop a closer connection within their communities.

Christian missionaries benefited from colonial advances because Europeans were interested in the continent of Africa and the wealth it could create for them. The coastal regions were their biggest interest. The coastal regions were perfect for trading purposes and trading posts were established. The Europeans saw Africa and the wealth it possessed and its abundant amount of natural resources and Western Europeans wanted to start trade with Africa. Missionaries tried to spread the Christian religion to Africa while at the same time had the agenda to spread the Western culture in Africa. Europeans exploited the potential wealth of Africa. What started out as a journey for missionaries to spread the Christian religion turned into Europeans trying to force Africans into accepting foreign rule. Europeans tried to colonize as much African land as possible.

Christian missionaries were disruptive in African society because the Africans that they were able to convert no longer followed the authority of their local chiefs. The missionaries gave the European armies useful information and helped support their expeditions against African groups that didn’t want to accept the Christian religion. The Europeans forced Christianity onto the African people and it resulted in some African leaders beginning to regulate contact with the West or ban communication all together. However, due to the trading posts and development of trade within the coastal regions, some leaders and countries became dependent on the trades and could not prohibit contact with the west. Europeans used the strategy of divide and conquer by studying the rivalries between different African groups and forged alliances with some groups against others.

Some of the positive impacts of colonialism on African societies were that the colonial governments developed railroads, ports, roads, technology etc. However, there were many negative impacts such as the European policies hurt the African traditional economics. The changes led to a loss of land ownership and labor which resulted in an increase in the poverty level and less land ownership for the African people. Another effect of colonialism was how the cash crops hurt the neighboring countries in Africa because they stopped trading among their neighbors and instead traded using cash crops. Cash crops made it so there was more trade going on with countries overseas than with the neighboring countries in Africa.

The European colonialism brought the western culture to Africa such as the European education system and religion. The concept of Ubuntu illustrates the point that the African Christians have started to assert their spiritual autonomy from the west because it has allowed there to be connections made between Christianity and Africa’s unique cultural traditions. Ubuntu is an African ancient word meaning “humanity to others”. We are all part of the whole which makes up humanity.

There are a few things that the west can learn from African Christianity. One of which is the power of prayer. African Christians pray on multiple occasions. Prayer is something that African’s participate in multiple times throughout the day. The African Christians are involved with helping others and providing hospitality to people in need. The African people take care of their own family, extended family, and others whether it be by helping to provide shelter or food. The act of hospitality is something that comes naturally and is a constant practice among African people and their communities.

Source: Jacob, Douglas Global Gospel: An Intro. To Christianity on Five Continents

Grand Rapids, MI. Baker Academic 2015

The motivation of European countries for colonization of Africa was economic reasons. They wanted to get valuable resources for cheaper prices like gold or rubber. In 1880s, European countries started to advance to Africa continent for trading their goods. However, in order to make African understand Western culture colonial government sent missionaries for spreading gospel which is the basic of Western culture. The main business of was education. They built school for Africans and tried to convert African religion to Christianity. Colonial government supported missionaries for their needs. Also, there was little bit racial discrimination beneath Western version of gospel. However, when William Wade Harris started to preach for African in postcolonial era, Christianity was settled down in Africa continent. After that, Africa Initiated Churches founded and they began to spread gospel which did not imply about anti-African message. However, African interpreted bible in their own way. They tried to make bible fit into their culture.

Jacobsen states that African history is full of oppression and suffering (57). Because European colonial government made temporal boundaries without discussion with many of African tribes, there was always conflict. Most of conflicts were about independence of Africa.  The most extreme case of religious conflict occurred in Rwanda, July 4, in 1994. So many Christians were killed by other Christians. The reason was about wrong land distribution by Tusti royal family which was rooted in colonial era. This conflict affected neighborhood countries in Africa. Therefore, the theological concept of Ubuntu came out from public in moral sense. Ubuntu implies “all human beings as dependent on and responsible for one another like, “The God that African Christians know and love is a God who vastly exceeds anything any human being could ever fully comprehend or understand and who loves all of creation equally”(Jacobsen, 72). This shows that African society is based on community and African applied this into Christianity, too.

In terms of growth of Christians, Western Christianity has to learn from Africa. As Jacobsen mentioned, Africans consider Christianity as a community. They are good at taking care of other people as they do for their own family. Also, Africans are passionate for participation in church. They pray together for God’s will and go to the worship meeting once a week with one heart. Most of important point is African Christianity was built on evangelical belief with their own traditional culture. They learned how to adapt Christianity on their own culture. For propagation of gospel, Western Christianity learn how to apply gospel in other region’s culture.

Typically Christianity in Africa is thought of as being a recent phenomenon, perhaps only dating back to the colonization of Africa by European nations in the 19th century. In actuality, Christianity has been in Africa even since the earliest years. In pre-colonial Africa, influences of racial tensions affected the newly developing Christian communities, especially those from the slave trade. Still under Portuguese rule, the church’s main role became baptizing slaves before they were shipped off to the new world; a practice seen by the slave traders as an act of Christian mercy, but to the African people just another part of the terrible process. During the colonial era, from the late 1800s to 1900s, European powers divided up nearly ever inch of the continent amongst themselves, creating tremendous influences over all native peoples. Along with the colonizers came Christian missionaries, determined to “spread the light of the Gospel and the benefits of Christian culture and civilization to peoples who sit in the darkness and in the shadow of death” (Pope Pius XI). These missionaries set up churches and schools as a way to “win converts for Christ”, and often worked closely with the government, who sometimes gave the missionaries near-monopoly control over things like education. Missionaries traveled and preached with a drive to eagerly spread their theological opinions, but African Christianity would not have flourished if it weren’t for Africans themselves taking up preaching and spreading the gospel. One such African with tremendous influence was William Wade Harris, a native from Liberia who traveled, baptized and preached the Gospel, and ended up converting over a hundred thousand Africans to Christianity. He was a part of the founding of AIC, (African Initiated Churches), who left the missionary Christian church after concluding it was not biblical, instead launching their own independent congregations and denominations. They disagreed with the missionaries’ beliefs that ancestors were irrelevant, miracles rarely happened, and dreams or visions did not matter. After interpreting the bible for themselves, Africans found that saints and ancestors herein fact important, dreams and visions were a significant way for God to communicate with people, and polygamy was acceptable in some cases,. Therefore, by the 1960’s, over six thousand AICs had been established across Africa. In post-colonization times, these shifted even more toward a self-theorizing church, with much less orderliness than the European model, and much more “free-wheeling” focus on the Spirit. Their freedom from European rule therefore also allowed for a new spiritual independence as well.

Jacobsen states how African Christians have recently begun to separate themselves from western ideals, a move that has allowed them to make connections between cultural traditions and Christianity. Racial tensions stemming from colonization have produced massive genocides or apartheids in countries such as Rwanda and South Africa, proving that Christianity does not prevent social violence. Ancient cultural hierarchies and customs caused anger and resentment toward fellow Christians, but one positive influence of traditional African theology that differs from the rest of the world is ubuntu. Ubuntu refers to the interconnectedness of all people, connecting to their faith by believing that Christianity is about the community, not the individual. “When ubuntu is universalized to include all of humanity, then it has enormous potential to positively shape Christian life and thought” (Jacobsen, 63). This belief, along with others, have given African Christians a unique spiritual “depth” that other western cultures do not have. Theological expressions of ubuntu are reflected in unique beliefs about reconciliation and human values, communion with the ancestors; a second realm resembling heaven but still with abilities to communicate, and the God of everyone and all creation; using a possessive pronouns when talking about God is incomprehensible. “The God that African Christians know and love is a God who vastly exceeds anything any human being could ever fully comprehend or understand and who loves all of creation equally”(Jacobsen, 72).

Considering these unique parts that shape African Christianity, western cultures may be able to learn thing or two from them. The observed strictness of traditional Western Christianity we are accustomed to has led to many diversions and contradicting views within the church, as seen historically in schisms, reformations, new denominations, and others. All the denominations now present in modern Christianity all are because of the goal to have a set of principles and beliefs everyone holds similar. In African traditions, it seems as though their ancient traditions never had to be denied, and this caused the formation of an extremely devout Christian body who claims much more than western people that religion is an important part of their life. This call to cast aside any traditions and adhere to a common belief is what may be causing many people in western cultures to want to dissimulate their traditions, have no desire to be religious, or become atheist and deny God altogether. By believing in a common God, and that all human life is connected and not based on individual beliefs is an important glue that holds all African people together. Jacobsen says Africans sometimes use the acronym WEIRD to describe the Western lifestyle norm; Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic. These people, most westerners, view themselves as independent and self-sufficient. To most Africans, this way of thinking is incomprehensible. “Worship is the joyful, exuberant, full-bodied celebration of God and God’s presence within the community of believers on earth”(Jacobsen, 62).