Abolitionist Movement. the Abolitionist Move- Bibliography
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Africa Abolitionist Movement. The abolitionist move- Bibliography. J. R. McKivigan, The War against Pro- ment in the United States had a great impact on slavery Religion: Abolitionism and the Northern the home and overseas missionary movement. Churches, 1830–1865; B. Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan During the 1820s and 1830s antislavery and and the Evangelical War against Slavery; C. Whipple, Relations of the American Board of Commissioners for proabolition activity put pressure on mission Foreign Missions to Slavery; R. Torbet, Venture of Faith. agencies to sever all relationships with slavehold- ers: not to appoint them as missionaries, receive Africa. The growth of the church in Africa is one their donations, place them on their boards, or of the most surprising facts of twentieth-century receive them as members in their home mission church history. From an estimated 4 million pro- churches. As a result, the AMERICAN BOARD OF fessing Christians in 1900 African Christianity COMMISSIONERS FOR FOREIGN MISSIONS (ABCFM) has grown to over 300 million adherents by the from 1840 to 1860 repeatedly was presented with year 2000. What accounts for such growth? The petitions that called it to deal with issues of common notion that nineteenth-century mis- slaveholding and slaveholders in connection with sionary efforts explain African Christianity’s re- its work among the Cherokee and Choctaw peo- cent explosion is an oversimplification. The true ple in the United States. Tensions within the story behind these statistics reaches back to the churches and the board itself between moderate very earliest centuries of Christian history. and radical proabolition factions made it diffi- Beginnings. The roots of African Christianity cult for the agency to solve these disputes to ev- are to be found in the four regional churches of eryone’s satisfaction. Africa in the Roman era—Egypt, North Africa, Such adjustments that the ABCFM and other Nubia, and Ethiopia. The origins of Christianity mission agencies made did not satisfy the radical in Egypt are obscure. The first documentary evi- abolitionists. Therefore, the antislavery Ameri- dence of the existence of an Egyptian church can Home Mission Society was formed in 1826, dates from A.D. 189 with Bishop Demetrius. Per- and by the early 1840s a number of “comeouter” secution in the third century caused the faith to groups separated from denominational boards. spread down the Nile into rural Egypt among the For example, the American Baptist Free Mission Coptic-speaking population, where it found a Society (ABFMS) was organized in 1843 and no new champion in Antony, the father of monasti- longer worked with the Triennial Convention of cism. After a period of syncretism in the fourth northern Baptists. This society, which existed century, mature Coptic churches emerged in the until 1868, became the means through which an- fifth century under the leadership of inde- tislavery Baptists engaged in missions at home pendently minded monastic leaders such as She- and abroad. During the years of their existence nout. The signs of an indigenous Christianity the ABFMS had personnel in Japan and Burma. rooted in the language and life of the people It also agitated in Baptist state associations in were everywhere evident, including Cop- the north on behalf of slaves, as well as in slave- tic-speaking clergy and Coptic liturgies together holding areas in Kentucky and Virginia. with Scripture translations. Similar to the ABFMS in all but a denomina- North Africa. While Egyptian Christianity was tional name was the American Missionary Asso- a testimony to the importance of a contextual- ciation (AMA) formed in Albany, New York, in ized Christianity, North Africa was a sober re- 1846. Strongly proabolition, the AMA at its minder of the fragility of a faith insufficiently founding integrated into itself three antislavery rooted in the life of the people. The Roman seg- missionary organizations—the Union Missionary ment of North Africa embraced the gospel with Society, the Committee for West India Missions, vigor but the Punic and Berber peoples were and the Western Evangelical Society. It promoted never adequately reached. The brilliance of already existing mission activities and many new North African Christianity cannot be doubted. ones. By 1856 it had a total of seventy-nine mis- The genius of Tertullian, Cyprian, and Augustine sionaries working among North American Indi- is well known, yet even their brilliance could not ans and in Africa, the Sandwich Islands, Jamaica, prevent the decline of a church troubled by sepa- Siam (Thailand), Egypt, and Canada. The AMA ratism and persecution. Despite the failure of began work among Chinese in America in 1852, North African Christianity to contextualize the and this led to the formation of the California faith, Augustine’s observation that the story of Chinese Mission by 1875. With the beginning of the African church is the story of the clash of the Civil War the work of the AMA began to focus two kingdoms, the City of God and the earthly almost exclusively on the freedmen in the South, city, continued to illuminate African church his- and it ceased broader missionary efforts at home tory. and abroad. Important leaders in the work of the Ethiopia. Solid evidence for the conversion of AMA included such evangelical abolitionists as Ethiopia appears in 350, when King Ezana be- Lewis Tappan and Joshua Leavitt. gins to ascribe his victories to the “Lord of All RALPH R. COVELL . Jesus Christ who has saved me” rather than 1 Africa to the traditional gods. Crucial to this change Alwa, was conquered by a tribe from the south was the ministry of Bishop FRUMENTIUS, who had recently converted to Islam. The last word from been commissioned by Athanasius of Alexandria Nubian Christianity occurs in 1524 when they as a missionary to Ethiopia. The precedent set by wrote to the Coptic patriarch of Egypt for help to Athanasius became entrenched and the Ethio- meet their critical shortage of clergy. The lack of pian Orthodox Church continued to receive its indigenous church leaders combined with the abun (bishop) by appointment of the Egyptian failure to evangelize the peoples to the south Coptic patriarch. By Ezana’s death in 400 Chris- conspired to undermine Nubian Christianity. tianity was firmly rooted at court but had made Egyptian and Ethiopian survival. Christianity little impact on the countryside. That changed in survived the onslaught of Islam but not without the sixth century with the coming of a new mis- losses. Caliph Umar had forbidden new churches sionary force from Syria. The tesseatou Kidous- or monasteries but under the Umayyids (661– san (“nine saints”) established monasteries in the 750) this law was not enforced. Other forms of rural areas and engaged in widespread evange- pressure, however, were applied. In 744 the Mus- lism. Linked with the Egyptian Coptic Christian- lim governor of Egypt offered tax exemption for ity and armed with the Scriptures in the vernac- Christians who converted to Islam. Twenty-four ular the Christians of Ethiopia entered the thousand responded. Throughout the African Middle Ages, where they “slept near a thousand Middle Ages the Coptic church suffered from a years, forgetful of the world, by whom they were lack of trained leadership, discriminatory laws, forgotten” (Gibbon). and a stagnant ritualism in worship. Nonethe- Nubia. Like Ethiopia, Nubia (modern Sudan) less, it survived. By 1600 Egypt was a “country of was never part of the Roman Empire. The Chris- dual religious cultures.” tianity that infiltrated Nubia began a religious Ethiopian Christianity also followed the path revolution in Nubia that transformed both peo- of survival. After a crisis in the tenth century ple and prince by the sixth century. Archaeologi- when the pagan Agau nearly toppled the king, cal evidence that came to light only in the 1960s Ethiopian clergy began to work for reform and has revealed the vigor of Nubian Christianity. revival of the national faith. One movement of Two sixth-century missionaries from Byzantium, renewal brought a new dynasty to the imperial Julian and Longinus, are credited with officially throne of Ethiopia. The most popular leader of introducing the Christian faith, in its Mono- the Zagwe dynasty, Lalibela, strengthened Ethio- physite form, to this kingdom along the Blue pia’s religious patriotism by building a New Jeru- Nile. salem in the Ethiopian highlands and strength- The African Middle Ages. These four original ening the belief that Ethiopians were the new sources of African Christianity faced their great- Israel through whom God would bring light to est challenge during the African Middle Ages. the nations. Under the missionary monk TEK- The first challenge, which inaugurated the Afri- LA-HAYMANOT Ethiopian Christianity experienced can Middle Ages, came from a new religion— revival. New missionary efforts among the Shoa Islam. The second challenge, which brought the of the south met with success. Emperor Zara-Ya- African Middle Ages to an end, came from the qob (d. 1468) brought Ethiopia to new heights of kingdoms of European Christendom represented glory but by 1529 the kingdom was in decline. by the Portuguese and the Dutch. Ahmad Gragn, a Muslim, successfully overthrew North African and Nubian collapse. The rise the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia but his reign and spread of Islam across Africa’s northern was short-lived. Within a few years Christian shore in the seventh and eighth centuries was Ethiopia was restored, this time with the help of followed in the tenth and eleventh centuries by a a new player on the African stage—the Portu- southward expansion led by the merchant and guese. the missionary. North Africa was most dramati- The Portuguese. Inspired by their visionary cally affected by this expansion of Islam. The de- leader, Prince Henry, the Portuguese embarked cline of North African Christianity was nearly on a campaign of aggressive expansion between total by the sixteenth century.