Christianity and African Culture: Conservative German Protestant Missionaries in Tanzania, 1900-1940 (Studies of Religion in Africa)

The common charge laid against missionaries that they are destroyers of African culture is shown to be untrue of the missionaries treated in this book, who worked with considerable success to integrate Christianity and African culture. The author examines the endeavours of the missionaries from the perspective of the local Christians, who were not themselves interested in Africanization as such. One can thus find some missionaries defending - against the elected African Church leadership - the right of the Chagga Christians to circumcise their daughters, and Nyakyusa Christians refusing to use African tunes because the missionaries - influenced by National Socialism - professed both love for African culture and white superiority.