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 Contrasts And Parallels TENSIONS Christianity was taken up enthusiastically by large numbers of people from the 1880's in West, South and parts of East Africa. But many missionaries who came from Europe from the 1800's onwards were disapproving of how Africans worshipped. They demanded monogamy where polygamy was central to the health and wealth of the community; they disapproved of some traditional dress, and dances. They wanted all the objects or animals which people worshipped, destroyed. There were also tensions between missionaries and Africans when they converted to Christianity. It was not long before African Christians wanted to worship without any European intermediaries, and, to the distress of many missionaries, in their own style. PARALLELS There were aspects of Christianity which were quite familiar to people coming across it for the first time: the idea of a supreme power; the idea of the material world - this world; and another world - the spiritual world; and the idea of revelation and prophesy, through dreams and through visions. These were all present to a greater or lesser extent in traditional religions. Redemption through Christ's sacrifice had its echo in sacrificial rites of traditional religions. Missionaries had, from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, been tolerant of African religious practices merging with Christianity. So for a time, polygamy was not considered adultery but assigned the lesser sin of concubinage. In Europe the same thing had happened: European pagan practices had been adapted to Christian ones when Christianity first spread in Europe. |
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