Paper Topic:

Christianity and Colonialism in South Africa

p An analysis of Christianity and Colonialism in South Africa

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The article Christianity and Colonialism in South Africa ' by Jean and John Comaroff is a deeper look at the impact of missionaries on the native peoples of South Africa in the 1800 's , and gives the reader insight about the cultural differences that prohibited the South African people from taking on the full teachings of the missionaries particularly as it pertained to the politics of the

people . The cultural clash led to many instances of misunderstanding between the native people of South Africa and the missionaries who sought to bring Christianity to them the reason is not because the missionaries sought to change the politics of the native tribes , but because they did not understand the correlation between tribal politics , tribal culture , and tribal tradition . The authors of this article take the position that while missionaries were successful in bringing the new religion to South Africa , they were unsuccessful in helping the natives create a better form of government like those of the Europeans because of the cultural misunderstandings and the inability of the missionaries to build a foundation on which to create a successful colony that would survive into the future

The history of Christianity and colonialism in South Africa is varied and often hard to understand as it happened over many years to many different native groups . The best documentation has been left by the missionaries themselves , who often were accepted by the South Africans with gusto but their effects on politics were minute . Without understanding the strong connection between the cultural traditions of the people , such as their rainmaking dance and the importance of those cultural traditions to the political power of the tribal chiefs . The authors argue that because of the failure of the missionaries to infiltrate the tribes and help them establish European-style governments , the colonialism of South Africa failed , leaving the country open to a future revolution , or , as the authors state , from revelation to revolution (Comaroff 18 . The authors make the point that , in essence , the failure of the missionaries to thoroughly connect their religion to the politics of the people is responsible for the failure of European countries to colonize the nation . The missionaries were often opposed by the powerful Protestant chiefs and , ironically , were often in the end rejected by the very congregations they had spawned (Comaroff 17 . The major point the authors are arguing is that the missionaries did more to harm their cause and that of colonization than they did to help it in other words , they created a monster that then rejected their influence on South African life

The essence of this article is the author 's arguments and , while they make a convincing argument about the failure of colonialism being connected to Christianity 's influence , it becomes obvious that it is the cultural differences that truly stood in the way of the missionaries success . While...

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