A Mixed History
To celebrate African World Heritage Day, Rev Dr Andrew Ashdown, Partnership Coordinator for Africa (Global Relationships team, Methodist Church in Britain) has written an article reflecting on the history of the church in Africa, and celebrating the continent’s “rich cultural, religious and human heritage.”
It’s an excellent read, which confronts the harm caused by Western missionaries but also celebrates the vital role which the church continues to play in many African communities.
The history of western Christianity in Africa is mixed. Along with the well-meaning motives of ‘civilisation’ and ‘development’ came a disregard for age-old wisdoms and cultures; the imposition of modern political borders which divided populations; and the exploitation of resources that could have done so much more to empower and benefit the people of Africa, but which instead impoverished them…
[Yet] throughout Africa… churches are undertaking numerous transformational locally-led community development and income-generating initiatives to improve lives and address the many challenges that communities face. And the Church is instrumental in providing education and health care across the continent, its’ schools and clinics serving thousands of communities.
Rev Dr Ashdown meets a Samburu family in Kenya