African Spirituality and the Christian Encounter

The book seeks to examine 19th and 20th century missionary work in Bakossi, Cameroon with a view of questioning the essence and impact of the hegemonic and supremacist approaches adopted to evangelise the society. Such approaches were said to have advocated and successfully led to the destruction of indigenous forms of spirituality, socio-cultural regulation and political organisation. With renewed research interest in the value of African indigenous worship systems and spirituality in social regulation, and their potential significance in the global marketplace, the book seeks to question the hitherto glorified missionary engagements of evangelising a people on the notion of 'civilising heathens and savages.' It argues that there is need to ask whether the African society was different from the picture painted in 19th century Europe; whether a deep knowledge of African societies by missionaries could have inspired alternative forms of perception and interaction with African societies and most importantly, a need to intimate whether such a varying approach to evangelization by early missionaries would have led to alternative win-win results for both Christianity and Africans.

Autorentext

Roland Ndille is an Associate Professor of History and Education and Head of Department-History and African Civilizations at the University of Buea-Cameroon. He is a Visiting Professor at Sol Plaatje University, Kimberley, South Africa and University of Milan-Italy and Research Fellow at the University of the Free State (UFS) South Africa.