Church History

Church History

Focussing on the development of Christianity and churches in Europe and Africa in the 20th century, it became much more obvious how deeply the awareness of a „North- South conflict” changed confessional perceptions in European as well as in African catholic, protestant and charismatic circles. The changed perception contributed to the emergence of a global and transnational view about modern Christianity. For further academic research this implies that, in the future, the history of Christianity in the 20th century can no longer be written from a purely European or Western perspective. Instead the mutual relations, the reciprocal linkages, but also the ambivalences and conflicts of European-African relations will have been closely considered and embedded into a comprehensive transnational perspective.

The influence of European Christianity in Africa in the first half of the 20th century was of course considerable in the context of mission and colonialism. It also brought the internationalization of ecclesiastical relations and, on one hand, new inspirations but, on the other hand, problems which arose in the traditional understanding of the relationship between church and state. This volume contributes to the expanded body of scholarship on mission and its consequences. Holger Bernd Hansen introduces us to this complex field with the example of Uganda. Drawing on the extensive and diverse academic literature, which has grown far from the classical history of mission over the past years, the reciprocity of mutual interests and influences of the Christian mission is detailed and analysed.5 Aspects of mission are also discussed by Simo Heininen and Odd Magne Bakke who describe, from a North European view, transnational aspects of the Finnish and the Norwegian history of mission in Namibia and North Cameroon. Both authors make clear that the role of the European Mission in changing of African Christianity should not only seen simply in negative moral or political terms or as a cultural one-way street.

The sufferings of the First and Second World War marked for European Christians important political, social and religious breaks. But as global wars they also had - which the European perspective sometimes overlooks or does not fully understand - fundamental effects on Africa. Not only was the geopolitical map of Africa changed, but the mandate system of the League of Nations (and later its successor, the United Nations) added a new dimension to its political constitution. Africa was an active participant in these wars initiated in Europe - and conflict affected directly African Christians and churches. In this regard, Wilson Niwagila looks at how the church struggle of the anti-Nazi Confessional Church (“Bekennende Kirche”) in Germany was seen from an African perspective, while Joseph Parsalaw traces the effects of the First and Second World War on the German mission in what is now Tanzania. Despite the national separations and violent conflicts of this period, the ecumenical movement provided various means for Christians of the whole world to meet in an alternative, peaceful arena. In the first half of the century the hegemony of WesternChristianity within this ...