vol. 2, p. 57: "I am preparing for assault of this great Mohammedan 38. Neill, A History of Christian Missions, p. 264. Imaun. I have read the Koran and notes twice for this purpose ... 39. Smith, Henry Martyn, p. 416: "All controversy, from St. Xavier's but alas! What little hope have I of doing him or any of them good time to Martyn's, Wilson's and Pfander's shows that the key of the in this way" (May 4, 1807). position is not the doctrine of the Trinity ... but the genuiness and 35. Christian Troll, Christian Muslim Relations in India: A Critical Survey integrity of the scriptures." (Bangalore: Association for Islamic Studies, 1980), p. 9. 40. See Samuel W. Zwemer, Arabia: TheCradle ofIslam (New York: Fleming 36. Wilberforce, Journal and Letters, vol. 2, p. 46, letter to Associated Clergy, H. Revell, 1900), p. 357, citing French: "In memory of Henry Mar­ April 6, 1807. tyn's pleadings for Arabia ... I seem ... to follow more directly in 37. Troll, Christian Muslim Relations in India, p. 9. his footsteps and under his guidance."

Bibliography

Selected Works by Henry Martyn

Controversial Tracts on Christianity and Mohammendanism (edited by Samuel Frame, Hugh F. Temperature 126! London: Edinburgh House Press, 1937. Lee). Cambridge: J. Smith, 1824. Padwick, Constance. Henry Martyn: Confessor of the Faith. London: IVF, Journals and Letters (edited by S. Wilberforce). London: R. B. Seeley and 1922; revised 1953. W. Burnside, 1837. Page, Jesse. Henry Martyn of India and Persia. London: Pickering & Inglis, 1930. Selected Works on Henry Martyn Sargent, John. Memoirof The Revd Henry Martyn, BD. London: J. Hatchard & Son, 1819. Butler, Howard T. The Life and Work of Henry Martyn. Madras: Christian Smith, George. Henry Martyn. London: Religious Tract Society, 1892. Literature Society, 1921.

The Legacy of Samuel Ajayi Crowther

Andrew F. Walls

amuel Adjai' Crowther was probably the most widely slavery could bring, the raids fed a still worse evil: the European S known African Christian of the nineteenth century. His traders at the coast. These maintained a trade in slaves, illegal life spanned the greater part of it-he was born in its first decade but still richly profitable, across the Atlantic. and died in the last. He lived through a transformation of relations When Crowther was about thirteen, Osogun was raided, between Africa and the rest of the world and a parallel transfor­ apparently by a combination of Fulani and Oyo Muslims. Crowther mation in the Christian situation in Africa. By the time of his twice recorded his memories of the event, vividly recalling the death the bright confidence in an African church led by Africans, de sola tion of burning houses, the horror of capture and roping a reality which he seemed to embody in himself, had dimmed. by the neck, the slaughter of those unfit to travel, the distress of Today things look very different. It seems a good time to consider being torn from relatives. Ajayi changed hands six times, before the legacy of Crowther. being sold to Portuguese traders for the transatlantic market. The colony of Sierra Leone had been founded by a coalition Slavery and Liberation of anti-slavery interests, mostly evangelical Christian in inspira­ tion and belonging to the circle associated with William Wilber­ The story begins with the birth of a boy called Ajayi in the town force and the "Clapham Sect." It was intended from the of Osogun in Yorubaland in what is now Western Nigeria, in or beginning as a Christian settlement, free from slavery and the about the year 1807. In later years the story was told that a diviner slave trade. The first permanent element in the population was had indicated that Ajayi was not to enter any of the cults of the a group of former slaves from the New World. Following the orisa, the divinities of the Yoruba pantheon, because he was to abolition of the slave trade by the British Parliament in 1807 and be a servant of Olorun", the God of heaven." He grew up in the subsequent treaties with other nations to outlaw the traffic, dangerous times. Both the breakup of the old Yoruba empire of Sierra Leone achieved a new importance. It was a base for the Oyo, and the effect of the great Islamic jihads, which were es­ naval squadron that searched vessels to find if they were carrying tablishing a new Fulani empire to the north, meant chaos for the slaves. It was also the place where slaves were brought if any Yoruba states. Warfare and raiding became endemic. Besides all were found aboard. The Portuguese ship on which Ajayi was the trauma of divided families and transplantation that African taken as a slave was intercepted by the British naval squadron in April 1822, and he, like thousands of other uprooted, disorien­ tated people from inland Africa, was put ashore in Sierra Leone. By this time, Sierra Leone was becoming a Christian com­ Andrew Walls, Director of the Centre for the Study of Christianity in the Non­ Western World in the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, served in Sierra Leone munity. It was one of the few early successes of the missionary and Nigeria. He is a contributing editor of the INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF movement, though the Christian public at large was probably less MISSIONARY RESEARCH. conscious of the success than of the appalling mortality of mis­

JANUARY 1992 15 sionaries in what became known as the White Man's Grave. To Crowther was appointed a schoolmaster of the mission, serv­ all appearances the whole way of life of Sierra Leone--clothing, ing in the new villages created to receive "liberated Africans" buildings, language, education, religion, even names--closely fol­ from the slave ships. A schoolmaster was an evangelist; in Sierra lowed Western models. These were people of diverse origins Leone church and school were inseparable. We get glimpses of whose cohesion and original identity were now beyond recall. an eager, vigorous young man who, at least at first, was highly They accepted the combination of Christian faith and Western confrontational in his encounters with representatives of Islam lifestyle which Sierra Leone offered, a combination already rep­ and the old religions in Africa. In later life he valued the lessons resented in the oldest inhabitants of the colony, the settled slaves of this apprenticeship-the futility of abuse, the need to build from the New World. personal relationships, and the ability to listen patiently. Such was the setting in which young Ajayi now found him­ Crowther began study of the Temne language, which sug­ self. We know little of his early years there. Later he wrote that gests a missionary vision toward the hinterland of Sierra Leone. But he also worked systematically at his own language, as far as ... about the third year of my liberation from the slavery of man, the equipment to hand allowed. I was convinced of another worse state of slavery, namely, that of sin and Satan. It pleased the Lord to open my heart. ... I was Transformation of the Scene admitted into the viable Church of Christ here on earth as a soldier to fight manfully under his banner against our spiritual enemies." Two developments now opened a new chapter for Crowther and He was baptized by the Reverend John Raban, of the (Anglican) for Sierra Leone Christianity. One was a new link with Yoruba­ Church Missionary Society, taking the name Samuel Crowther, land. Enterprising liberated Africans, banding together and buy­ after a member of that society's home committee. Mr. Crowther ing confiscated slave ships, began trading far afield from Freetown. was an eminent clergyman; his young namesake was to make the Some of Yoruba origin found their way back to their homeland. name far more celebrated. They settled there, but kept their Sierra Leone connections and Crowther had spent those early years in Sierra Leone at school, the ways of life of Christian Freetown. The second development getting an English education, adding carpentry to his traditional was the Niger Expedition of 1841, the brief flowering of the hu­ weaving and agricultural skills. In 1827 the Church Missionary manitarian vision for Africa of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton." This investigative mission, intended to prepare the way for an alliance of "Christianity, commerce and civilization" that would de­ stroy the slave trade and bring peace and prosperity to the Niger, The mission intended to relied heavily on Sierra Leone for interpreters and other helpers. demonstrate a whole new The missionary society representatives also came from Sierra Leone. One was J. F. Schon, a German missionary who had striven with way of life, of which the languages of the Niger, learning from liberated Africans in Sierra church and the school and Leone. The other was Crowther. Crowther's services to the disaster-stricken expedition were the well-built house were invaluable. Schon cited them as evidence for his thesis that the all a part. key to the evangelization of inland Africa lay in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone had Christians such as Crowther to form the task force; it had among the liberated Africans brought there from the Society decided, for the sake of Sierra Leone's future Christian slave ships a vast language laboratory for the study of all the leadership, to provide education to a higher level than the col­ languages of West Africa, as well as a source of native speakers any's modest schools had given. The resultant "Christian In­ as missionaries; and in the institution at Fourah Bay it had a base stitution" developed as Fourah Bay College, which eventually for study and training. offered the first university education in tropical Africa. Crowther The Niger Expedition had shown Crowther's qualities, and was one of its first students. he was brought to England for study and ordination. The latter was of exceptional significance. Anglican ordination could be re­ ceived only from a bishop, and there was no bishop nearer than London. Here then, in 1843, began Sierra Leone's indigenous' The Loom of Language ministry." Here, too, began Crowther's literary career, with the publi­ This period marked the beginning of the work that was to form cation of Yoruba Vocabulary, including an account of grammatical one of the most abiding parts of Crowther's legacy. He continued structure, surely the first such work by a native speaker of an to have contact with Raban, who had baptized him; and Raban African language. was one of the few missionaries in Sierra Leone to take African languages seriously. To many of his colleagues the priority was to teach English, which would render the African languages un­ necessary. Raban realized that such policy was a dead end; he The Yoruba Mission also realized that Yoruba, Crowther's mother tongue, was a major language. (Yoruba had not been prominent in the early years of Meanwhile, the new connection between Sierra Leone and Sierra Leone, but the political circumstances that had led to young Yorubaland had convinced the CMS of the timeliness of a mission Ajayi's captivity were to bring many other Yoruba to the colony.) to the Yoruba. There had been no opportunity to train that African Crowther became an informant for Raban, who between 1828and mission force foreseen by Schon and Crowther in their report on 1830 published three little books about Yoruba; and almost cer­ the Niger Expedition, but at least in Crowther there was one tainly he also assisted another pioneer African linguist, the Quaker ordained Yoruba missionary available. Thus, after an initial re­ educationist Hannah Kilham. connaissance by Henry Townsend, an English missionary from

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Founded 1967 membermission: EFMA, ACMC, AIMS Sierra Leone, a mission party went to Abeokuta, the state of the judge and act on an equal footing with the European. Egba section of the Yoruba people. It was headed by Townsend, Crowther insisted that the translation should indicate tone­ Crowther, and a German missionary C. A. Gollmer, with a large a new departure. In vocabulary and style he sought to get behind group of Sierra Leoneans from the liberated Yoruba community. colloquial speech by listening to the elders, by noting significant These included carpenters and builders who were also teachers words that emerged in his discussions with Muslims or specialists and catechists. The mission intended to demonstrate a whole new in the old religion. Over the years, wherever he was, he noted way of life, of which the church and the school and the well-built words, proverbs, forms of speech. One of his hardest blows was house were all a part. They were establishing Sierra Leone in the loss of the ~otes of eleven years of such observations, and Yorubaland. The Sierra Leone trader-immigrants, the people who some manuscript translations, when his house burned down in had first brought Abeokuta to the attention of the mission, became 1862. the nucleus of the new Christian community. Written Yoruba was the product of missionary committee The CMS Yoruba mission is a story in itself. How the mission, work, Crowther interacting with his European colleagues on mat­ working on Buxton's principles, introduced the growing and pro­ ters of orthography. Henry Venn engaged the best linguistic ex­ cessing of cotton and arranged for its export, thereby keeping pertise available in Europe; not only Schon and the society's regular Abeokuta out of the slave economy; how the missionaries iden­ linguistic adviser, Professor Samuel Lee of Cambridge, but the tified with Abeokuta under invasion and reaped their reward great German philologist Lepsius. The outcome may be seen in afterwards; how the CMS mobilized Christian opinion to influence the durability of the Yoruba version of the Scriptures to which the British government on behalf of Abeokuta; the toils into which Crowther was the chief con tributor and in the vigorous vernacular literature in Yoruba that has grown up. This grave, eloquent, well­ New Niger Expeditions and a Mission to the informed black clergyman Niger was the most impressive In 1854 the merchant McGregor Laird sponsored a new Niger expedition, on principles similar to the first, but with a happier tribute to the missionary outcome. The CMS sent Crowther on this expedition. It revived movement that most the vision he had seen in 1841-a chain of missionary operations hundreds of miles along the Niger, into the heart of the continent. British had seen. He urged a beginning at Onitsha, in Igboland. The opportunity was not long coming. In 1857, he and J. C. Taylor, a Sierra Leonean clergyman of liberated Igbo parentage, the mission fell amid inter-Yoruba and colonial conflicts, have been joined Laird's next expedition to the Niger. Taylor opened the well told, elsewhere. 7 Crowther came to London in 1851 to present Igbo mission at Onitsha; Crowther went up river. Shipwrecked, the cause of Abeokuta. He saw government ministers; he had an and stranded for months, be began to study the Nupe language interview with the Queen and Prince Albert; he spoke at meetings and surveyed openings to the Nupe and Hausa peoples. The all over the country, invariably to great effect. This grave, elo­ Niger Mission had begun. quent, well-informed black clergyman was the most impressive Henry Venn soon made a formal structure for it. But it was tribute to the effect of the missionary movement that most British a mission on a new principle. Crowther led a mission force con­ people had seen; and Henry Venn, the CMS secretary who or­ sisting entirely of Africans. Sierra Leone, as he and Schon had ganized the visit, believed that it was Crowther who finally moved foreseen so long ago, was now evangelizing inland Africa. the government to action. For nearly half a century that tiny country sent a stream of But the missionaries' day-to-day activities lay in commending missionaries, ordained and lay, to the Niger territories. The area the Gospel and nourishing the infant church. There was a par­ was vast and diverse: Muslim emirates in the north, ocean trading ticularly moving incident for Crowther, when he was reunited city-states in the Delta, the vast Igbo populations in-between. It with the mother and sister from whom he had been separated is cruel that the missionary contribution of Sierra Leone has been when the raiders took them more than twenty years earlier. They persistently overlooked, and even denied." were among the first in Abeokuta to be baptized. It is possible here to consider only three aspects of a re­ In Sierra Leone the church had used English in its worship. · markable story. Two have been somewhat neglected. The new mission worked in Yoruba, with the advantage of native speakers in Crowther and his family and in most of the auxiliaries, and with Crowther's book to assist the Europeans. Townsend, More Legacy in Language an excellent practical linguist, even edited a Yoruba newspaper. But the most demanding activity was Bible translation. One of these is the continued contribution to language study and translation. Crowther himself wrote the first book on Igbo." He begged Schon, now serving an English parish, to complete his A Landmark in Translation Hausa dictionary. He sent one of his missionaries to study Hausa with Schon. Most of his Sierra Leone staff, unlike people of his The significance of the Yoruba version has not always been ob­ own generation, were not native speakers of the languages of the served. It was not the first translation into an African language; areas they served. The great Sierra Leone language laboratory but, insofar as Crowther was the leading influence in its produc­ was closing down; English and the common language, Krio, took tion, it was the first by a native speaker. Early missionary trans­ over from the languages of the liberated. Add to this the limited lations naturally relied heavily on native speakers as informants education of many Niger missionaries, and their record of trans­ and guides; but in no earlier case was a native speaker able to lation and publication is remarkable.

18 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH The Engagement with Islam porary one; once a church was established, the missionary should move on. The birth of the church brought the euthanasia of the Crowther's Niger Mission also represents the first sustained mis­ mission. With the growth of the Yoruba church, Venn sought to sionary engagement with African Islam in modern times. In the get these principles applied in Yorubaland. Even the best Euro­ Upper Niger areas in Crowther's time Islam, largely accepted by pean missionaries thought this impractical, the hobbyhorse of a the chiefs, was working slowly through the population in coex­ doctrinaire home-based administrator. istence with the old religion. From his early experiences in Sierra As we have seen, Venn made a new sphere of leadership for Leone, Crowther understood how Islamic practice could merge Crowther, the outstanding indigenous minister in West Africa. with traditional views of power. He found a demand for Arabic But he went further, and in 1864 secured the consecration of Bibles, but was cautious about supplying them unless he could Crowther as bishop of "the countries of Western Africa beyond be sure they would not be used for charms. His insight was the limits of the Queen's dominions," a title reflecting some con­ justified later, when the young European missionaries who suc­ straints imposed by Crowther's European colleagues, and others ceeded him wrote out passages of Scripture on request, pleased by the peculiarities of the relationship of the Church of England at such a means of Scripture distribution. They stirred up the to the Crown. Crowther, a genuinely humble man, resisted; Venn anger of Muslim clerics-not because they were circulating Chris­ would take no refusal. tian Scriptures, but because they were giving them free, thus In one sense, the new diocese represented the triumph of undercutting the trade in Qur'anic charms. In discussion with the three-self principle and the indigenization of the episcopate. Muslims, Crowther sought common ground and found it at the But it reflected a compromise, rather than the full expression of nexus of Qur'an and Bible: Christ as the great prophet, his mi­ those principles. It was, after all, essentially a mission, drawing raculous birth, Gabriel as the messenger of God. He enjoyed most of its clergy not from natives of the soil, but from Sierra courteous and friendly relations with Muslim rulers, and his writ­ Leone. Its ministry was "native" only in the sense of not being ings trace various discussions with rulers, courts, and clerics, European. Three-self principles required it to be self-supporting; recording the questions raised by Muslims, and his own answers, this meant meager resources, missionaries who got no home leave, the latter as far as possible in the words of Scripture: "After and the need to present education as a salable product. many years' experience, I have found that the Bible, the sword The story of the later years of the Niger mission has often of the Spirit, must fight its own battle, by the guidance of the been told and variously interpreted. It still raises passions and Holy Spirit."l0 causes bitterness." There is no need here to recount more than Christians should of course defend Trinitarian doctrine, but the essentials: that questions arose about the lives of some of the let them do so mindful of the horror-stricken cry of the Qur'an, missionaries; that European missionaries were brought into the "Is it possible that Thou dost teach that Thou and Thy Mother mission, and then took it over, brushing aside the old bishop (he are two Gods?" In other words, Christians must show that the was over eighty) and suspending or dismissing his staff. In 1891 things that the Muslims fear as blasphemous are no part of Chris­ tian doctrine. Crowther, though no great scholar or Arabist, developed an Crowther's Niger Mission approach to Islam in its African setting, which reflected the patience and the readiness to listen that marked his entire mis­ represents the first sionary method. Avoiding denunciation and allegations of false sustained missionary prophecy, it worked by acceptance of what the Qur'an says of Christ, and an effective knowledge of the Bible. Crowther looked engagement with African to the future with hope; the average African Christian knew the Islam in modern times. Bible much better than the average African Muslim knew the Qur'an. And he pondered the fact that the Muslim rule of faith was expressed in Arabic, the Christian in Hausa, or Nupe or Crowther, a desolate, broken man, suffered a stroke; on the last Yoruba. The result was different understandings of how the faith day of the year, he died. A European bishop was appointed to was to be applied in life. succeed him. The self-governing church and the indigenization of the episcopate were abandoned. Contemporary mission accounts all praise Crowther's per­ The Indigenization of the Episcopate sonal integrity, graciousness, and godliness. In the Yoruba mis­ sion, blessed with many strong, not to say prickly, personalities, The best-known aspect of Crowther's later career is also the most his influence had been irenic. In Britain he was recognized as a controversial; his representation of the indigenous church prin­ cooperative and effective platform speaker. (A CMS official re­ ciple. We have seen that he was the first ordained minister of his membered Crowther's being called on to give a conference ad­ church in his place. It was the policy of Henry Venn, then newly dress on "Mission and Women," and holding his audience at the helm of the CMS, to strengthen the indigenous ministry. spellbound.) Yet the same sources not only declared Crowther More and more Africans were ordained, some for the Yoruba "a weak bishop," but drew the moral that "the African mission. And Venn wanted well-educated, well-trained African race" lacked the capacity to rule. clergy; such people as Crowther's son Dandeson (who became European thought about Africa had changed since the time archdeacon) and his son-in-law T. B. Macaulay (who became prin­ of Buxton; the Western powers were now in Africa to govern. cipal of Lagos Grammar School) were better educated than many Missionary thought about Africa had changed since the days of of the homespun English missionaries. Henry Venn; there were plenty of keen, young Englishmen to Venn sought self-governing, self-supporting, self-propagat­ extend the mission and order the church; a self-governing church ing churches with a fully indigenous pastorate. In Anglican terms, now seemed to matter much less. And evangelical religion had this meant indigenous bishops. The missionary role was a tem- changed since Crowther's conversion; it had become more indi­

JANUARY 1992 19 vidualistic and more otherworldly. A young English missionary Archdeacon Dandeson Crowther, within the Anglican commun­ was distressed that the old bishop who preached so splendidly ion but outside the CMS. It grew at a phenomenal rate, becoming on the blood of Christ could urge on a chief the advanta§es of so self-propagating that it ceased to be self-supporting.':' having a school and make no reference to the future life. 1 This Other voices called for direct schism; the refusal to appoint story illustrates in brief the two evangelical itineraries: the short an African successor to Crowther, despite the manifest availability of outstanding African clergy, marks an important point in the history of African Independent churches." The treatment of Crowther, and still more the question of his successor, gave a In the Yoruba mission, focus for the incipient nationalist movement of which E. W. Bly­ blessed with many strong den was the most eloquent spokesman;" Crowther thus has his own modest place in the martyrology of African nationalism. and prickly personalities, But the majority of Christians, including those natural suc­ Crowther's influence had cessors of Crowther who were passed over or, worse, suffered been irenic. denigration or abuse, took no such course. They simply waited. Crowther was the outstanding representative of a whole body of West African church leaders who came to the fore in the pre­ Imperial age and were superseded in the Imperial. But the Im­ route via Keswick, and the long one via the White Man's Grave, perial age itself was to be only an episode. The legacy of Samuel the Niger Expedition and the courts of Muslim rulers of the north. I Ajayi Crowther, the humble, devout exponent of a Christian faith There were some unexpected legacies even from the last sad that was essentially African and essentially missionary, has passed days. One section of the Niger mission, that in the Niger Delta, to the whole vast church of Africa and thus to the whole vast was financially self-supporting. Declining the European takeover, church of Christ. it long maintained a separate existence under Crowther's son,

Notes ------­

1. Crowther himself spelled his Yoruba name (which he employed as a 306, who said, "It is only to be regretted that its Christianity has second name) thus. The modern spelling is Ajayi, and this spelling not proved expansive." In fact, few countries can claim so much ex­ is commonly used today, especially by Nigerian writers. pansion in proportion to the numbers of the Christian population. 2. On the relation of the orisa to Olorun, see E. B. Idowu, Olodumare: 9. See P. E. H. Hair, The Early Study of Nigerian Languages (Cambridge: God in Yoruba Belief (London: Longmans, 1962). Idowu argues that Cambridge Univ. Press, 1967), p. 82, for an assessment. See Stephen Olorum is never called an orisa, nor classed among them. Neill, ChristianMissions (pp. 377f) for the common impression of the 3. The story is representative of hundreds which show the God of the linguistic incompetence of Crowther and the Niger missionaries. Hair's Bible active in the African past through such prophecies of the Chris­ careful catalogue of their translations in the languages of the Lower tian future of Africa. Niger, as well as his descriptions of Crowther's linguistic surveys in 4. Walls, "A Second Narrative of Samuel Ajayi Crowther's Early the Upper Niger, show how misleading this is. Life," Bulletin of the Society for African Church History 2 (1965):14. 10. Crowther, Experiences with Heathens and Mohammedans in West Africa 5. On Buxton, see A. F. Walls, "The Legacy of Thomas Fowell Bux­ (London: 1892), p. 28. ton," International Bulletin of Missionary Research 15, no. 2 (1991):74­ 11. See E. A. Ayandele, The Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria: 1842­ 77. 1914 (London: Longmans, 1966) for a representative modern African 6. Crowther was not the first African to receive Anglican ordination. As view. Neill (p. 377) reflects the traditional "missionary" view. Ajayi, early as 1765, Philip Quaque, from Cape Coast in what is now Ghana, Christian Missions in Nigeria, sets the context, and G. O. M. Tasie notes who had been brought to England as a boy, was appointed chaplain some neglected factors in his ChristianMissionaryEnterprise in theNiger to the British trading settlement at Cape Coast. He died in 1816. Delta: 1864-1918 (Leiden: Brill, 1978). Crowther had never heard of him until he went ashore at Cape Coast 12. Ajayi, Christian Missions in Nigeria, p. 218. en route to the Niger in 1841 and saw a memorial tablet. See Jesse 13. For the story, see Tasie, Christian Missionary Enterprise in the Niger Page, The Black Bishop (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1908), p. 53. Delta. 7. Especially by J. F. A. Ajayi, Christian Missions in Nigeria: 1841-1891 14. See J. B. Webster, The African Churches among the Yoruba (Oxford: (London: Longmans, 1965). See also S. O. Biobaku, The Egba and Their Clarendon Press, 1964). Neighbours: 1942-1874 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957). 15. See, for instance, H. R. Lynch, Edward Wilmot Blyden(London: Oxford 8. Repeated, for instance, by Stephen Neill, Christian Missions (Pelican Univ. Press, 1967). History of the Church; Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1964), p.

Bibliography

Works by S. A. Crowther (other than translations and A. F. Walls, "A Second Narrative of Samuel Ajayi Crowther's Early linguistic works) Life," Bulletin of the Society for African Church History 2 (1965): 5-14. First publication of an autobiographical fragment. Journal of an Expedition up the Niger in 1841. By J. F. Schon and S. A. Crowther, London: 1843. Studies about S. A. Crowther Journal of an Expedition up the Niger and Tshadda Rivers. London: 1855. The Gospel on the Banksof the Niger . . . By S. A. Crowther and J. C. Taylor. Ajayi, J. F. A. ChristianMissions in Nigeria: 1841-1891. London: Long­ London: 1859. Reprint, London: Dawsons, 1968. mans, 1965. Experiences with Heathens and Mohammedans in West Africa. London: 1892.

20 INTERNATIONAL BULLETIN OF MISSIONARY RESEARCH Ajayi, J. F. A. "How Yoruba was reduced to Writing," Odu: Journal Shenk, W. R. Henry Venn: Missionary Statesman. Maryknoll, N.Y.: of Yoruba Studies (1961):49-58. Orbis Books, 1983. Ayandele, E. A. The Missionary Impact on Modern Nigeria: 1842-1914. Tasie, G. O. M. Christian Missionary Enterprise in theNigerDelta, 1864­ London: Longmans, 1966. 1918. Leiden: Brill, 1978. Hair, P. E. H. The Early Study of Nigerian Languages. Cambridge: Cam­ Walls, A. F. "Black Europeans, White Africans," in D. Baker, (ed.) bridge Univ. Press, 1967. Religious Motivation: Biographical and Sociological Problems of the Church His­ torian (Studies in Church History). Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, Mackenzie, P. R. Inter-religious Encounters in Nigeria. S. A. Crowther's 1978, pp. 339-48. Attitude to African Traditional Religion and Islam. Leicester: Leicester Univ. Press, 1976. Page, Jesse. The Black Bishop. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1908. Still the fullest biography, though limited in value.

Riding the Third Wave

Douglas J. Elwood

e are fast approaching the end of the Second Millennium have called it the INFORMATION REVOLUTION. For instance, in the W of Christian history and about to enter the Third Millen­ 1950s we witnessed the widespread introduction of the computer nium. This becomes even more challenging when we anticipate and commercial jet travel, and more recently color TV, the mi­ the Third Millennium in relation to the Third Wave of civilization crochip, the FAX machine, the laser disc, and numerous other and the emerging Third Church. high-impact innovations. This is clearly the information era. Each of these becomes more meaningful when seen in re­ Although the Third Wave began to gather momentum during lation to the other two: Third Church, Third Wave, Third Mil­ the 1950s in industrially developed countries, it has arrived more lennium. The three concepts coalesce in my mind, so that I have recently in other countries like South Korea and Taiwan. "To­ a vision of the Third Church riding the crest of the Third Wave day," says Toffler, "all the high-tech nations are reeling from into the Third Millennium. The most obvious characteristic of all the collision between the Third Wave and the obsolete ... econ- three is that they are time concepts-futuristic metaphors rooted in historical process. As we look ahead to the year 2000 we are challenged to respond to these complex events-complex because Many developing countries all three converge at the same time and in our own lifetime. are feeling the impact of Third Wave three different waves of

"Third Wave" is Alvin Toffler's creative metaphor for the new change, all at the same era of human civilization that is already forming somewhere out time. in the "ocean," so to speak. The central image of his provoc­ ative book, published in 1980, is that of colliding waves of change. Try to imagine two or three giant waves colliding! The first wave omies and institutions of the Second Wave."l This is because of change came with the AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION, which broke many developing countries are feeling the impact of two, even in upon nomadic fishing and hunting societies around 8000 B.C. three quite different waves of change, at the same time, all moving This form of civilization dominated the earth unchallenged until at different rates of speed and with varied degrees of force behind sometime around A.D. 1650 when it was disrupted by the second them. Understanding this, Toffler believes, is the secret to making wave of change that came with the INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION, char­ sense of much of the political and social conflict we see around us: acterized by an often violent clash between the farmers and the in the Middle East, for example, the Soviet Union, and the Phil­ indus trializers. ippines. "When a society is struck by two or more giant waves The industrial civilization is now in crisis because a vast new of change, and none is yet clearly dominant," he observes, "the cluster of forces has arisen to undermine it. The third wave of image of the future is fractured.r" Take the crisis the Philippines change began in the 1950s, when, for the first time, white-collar is now experiencing, familiar to this writer. It can be understood, and service workers began to outnumber blue-collar workers in in large part, as resulting from colliding waves of social change, industrially developed countries. Toffler does not name the rev­ as Filipinos feel simultaneously the impact of three social revo­ olutionary change that constitutes the Third Wave, but others lutions: the agricultural, the industrial, and the informational. What is happening now, as the Third Wave approaches, is noth­ ing less than a global revolution, a quantum leap in human his­ Douglas J. Elwood was a Presbyterian missionary in Southeast Asia for thirty tory. years, serving in Taiwan and the Philippines. Now retired in Tennessee, he is In Toffler's view, the jolting changes we are now experiencing serving as International Director for Development on the staff of Little Children are not chaotic but cumulative. They add up to a giant transfor­ of the World. mation in the way we live, work, play, and think. It assumes that

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