October is Black History Month here in the UK. I do not necessarily like the idea of a “black-history-month,” but I am sure it serves a purpose. Every October, we get to be sensitized that we live in a racialized world where, for the most part, whiteness is the default setting. In my missions world, it seems whiteness is the only setting. So, I cherish every chance I get to reflect on black (and brown) aspects of mission.
A few days ago, I had an opportunity to attend an African American mission conference in Dallas, Texas, in the United States, hosted by Sowing Seeds of Joy Ministries, a black mission agency led by Ron and Star Nelson. This was the first African American missions conference I have ever attended and it opened my eyes to some issues that I could not become aware of without going to Texas.
The conference will be the outstanding event for me this year. It was a great time to connect with some of the brilliant African American missions people, both scholars and leaders of mission agencies. I enjoyed seminars on the “History of African American Missions in the World” and “The State of Missions in the Black Church.” It was good to be reminded that ten years before William Carey went to India, a formerly enslaved African American man, George Liele, left the US to become a missionary in Jamaica.
We also got to celebrate the many African Americans who have, over the past two centuries, been part of the movement of people sharing the good news of Christ around the world. I thought of the many African evangelists and catechists who brought the gospel to numerous communities around the continent, many of whom are forgotten because their names never made it into the “history of mission” written by Anglo-European and North American missionaries. Many African and Afro-Caribbean Christians currently scattered around the world are also doing a great deal of work, sharing the good news and discipling the nations.
As I have thought of this, I have also became increasingly aware of the fact that a great deal of African missionary work in the world is shaped by Western language and thought. Missions is, for them, what the Westerners did in Africa many decades ago. Whether it is my African American or Afro-Caribbean friends or, indeed, my African colleagues, their missions talk is still largely about dominating and civilizing, even though, to a great extent, this is practically impossible.
I wonder whether Westerners involved in this work could model a more twenty-first century way of doing missions? And, of course, I wonder whether the rest of the world can, without the help of Western missions agencies and scholars, find ways to keep sharing the gospel of Jesus in non-colonial ways?
Originally published by Harvey Kwiyani. Republished with permission.
Dr Harvey Kwiyani is a Malawian missiologist and theologian who has lived, worked and studied in Europe and North America for the past 20 years. He has researched African Christianity and African theology for his PhD, and taught African theology at Liverpool Hope University. Harvey is also founder and executive director of Missio Africanus, a mission organization established in 2014 as a learning community focused on releasing the missional potential of African and other minority ethnic Christians living in the UK. More recently he became African Christianity Programme Lead for CMS (UK) Pioneer Mission Training.
