Wallace G. Mills Hist. 317 11 Christianity as Ideology
Christianity as Ideology
- the role of Christianity and Christian missions is controversial in that there are sharply different and conflicting assessments of that role; however, what is not usually denied is that Christianity was important and had powerful effects.
- the debate is more usually about whether the effects were positive or negative.
- in fact, the debate frequently gets caught up in one’s own personal, emotional feelings.
Why study the role of Christianity?
- several years ago, a student complained on student evaluations, “Too much about religion in this course.”
- certainly, there is a fair bit; in His. 316 we discussed some general aspects of African religion as well as Christianity. It is true that there is in this course a significant omission re: Islam (that’s largely a deficiency on my part; I don’t know enough about it to discuss it in detail).
- Marx made the famous aphorism about ‘Religion being the opiate of the masses’ as if it were simply a soporific and an addiction or a trick the capitalist classes pull on the masses.
- however, religion is much more fundamental than that.
- everyone needs some basis for making decisions; i.e., we need to be able to make some projections or predictions about the outcomes of different actions. Thus, we have to have some theory or belief about cause and effect (i.e., about how the universe works—a basic cosmology).
- nor is the key issue here Truth or falsity of one’s beliefs.
- e.g., a belief that the world is flat. For a long time that was not an impediment to getting around (even though most of us would agree that that conception is a ‘false’ one); even today as long as a person does not leave dry ground, they can still go on rather long journeys, can get to their destinations, and (most importantly) can get back home again. The belief is not necessarily dysfunctional.
- however, if one starts to venture out onto wide oceans or attempt to travel by airplane, a person with such a belief soon gets into serious trouble; they probably can’t get where they want to go or get back again. Sailors or airmen can’t be flat earthers.
- the key point is that religious beliefs, which embody a cosmology, must be perceived by the believers as being functional; if it is not, most will eventually be forced to search for conceptions that do have functional validity.
- thus, when we discussed the Xhosa, I argued that the turning to Christianity and mass conversion was related to the failure of traditional beliefs and practices to ward off failure and defeat. Even the adoption of some elements of Christianity in the cattle-killing but still within the context of traditional Xhosa beliefs had resulted in a bigger disaster; mass conversion began in a significant way in the next decade. Xhosa religion could not solve the problem or even explain what was happening very well.
- the point here is that religion and belief is tied to people’s needs; intrusion and conquest drastically altered the world and universe for most Africans.
- most Africans had lived in small-scale societies or worlds; conquest and colonialism imposed large-scale worlds, and the cosmological conceptions of traditional religion could provide few clues to how thing worked or happened in the new universe.
- it has been argued by some scholars, notably Robin Horton in regard to West Africa, that African religions would have developed more appropriate conceptions on their own (and that may well be true); however, the fact is that Christianity and Islam already incorporated cosmologies which were adapted to the new worlds being imposed on Africans. (Horton’s argument tends to underrate the importance of such religious conversions, by stating that conversion to one of the monotheistic religions merely speeded up what would have happened anyway).
- my argument will be that Africans made use of these conceptions.
- however, it should be noted that, very frequently, Christianity was accepted in addition to, not in place of, traditional conceptions. Many scholars have argued that this was equally or even more so among African converts to Islam.
Basic concern: Why do people behave the way they do?
- my approach assumes that what people think and believe has a large influence on what they do. Some people argue that this is irrelevant, that people’s behaviour is determined by economic forces or perhaps other external forces.
- marxists who say this nevertheless go on to try to politicise the masses and propagate their ideas. Why? If one believes that it doesn’t matter, why do it? This seems to me to be a contradiction coming from those who spent much of their time trying to point out contradictions of everyone else.
- people’s beliefs do matter and their behaviour is strongly influenced by their beliefs; this is not to say that behaviour is determined by beliefs because behaviour is certainly affected by external factors and forces as well.
- it is essential to learn something about what people believe in order to get much understanding of why they act as they do.
Christianity and Christian missions were not monolithic
- this is a frequently made error; Christianity came in many versions and in fact incorporated a number of different cosmological ideas; it provided a smorgasbord of ideas.
Christianity and Christian missions played both facilitating roles as well as initiating or activating roles.
Facilitating Roles:
- in education, missionaries were providing access to all the ideas and philosophies in the west, including revolutionary ideas and marxism.
- in the organising and running of voluntary organisations.
- initially these were in churches, it led on to other types of voluntary organisation—temperance societies, literary and debating societies, friendly societies; these were models and provided training for political organisations.
- in founding presses to provide literature for Africans, missionaries were creating an audience and means for disseminating ideas over large areas; thus, they laid the foundations for an African press.
Activating Roles:
- among the most important were cosmological ideas and models.
Eschatologies (ideas and predictions about the end times—‘end of the world’).
- many people dismiss such ideas as fanciful, far-fetched, and even ridiculous speculations (however, marxism has similar eschatologies that are just as important to its theories as those found in Christianity; I can’t see any difference in discussions and descriptions of socialist or communist societies and those of the Christian millennium).
- again, the important thing is not in ‘Truth’ or ‘Falsity’ of such ideas, but rather in the effects such ideas have on the believers and their behaviour.
- since early in its history, Christianity has harboured 2 diametrically different eschatologies.
Premillennialism and postmillennialism
- not only do they have different accounts of what the end of the world will be, but they also embody opposite views about what is happening in the present.
- premillennialism is very pessimistic about the direction and trend of events in the present. They believe that the world is wicked and getting steadily worse. The only way to get to the millennium is through violent upheaval and cataclysmic change. Thus, for Christians, they can only wait and be ready. It also means that they are not very keen to become actively involved in trying to change the world or improve it—that is both useless and may so preoccupy the Christian that he/she fails to maintain the state of grace (staying ‘saved’) and may lose out. Thus, they generally adopt political ‘quietism’.
- postmillennialism is much more optimistic and hopeful; proponents believe that the millennium will be achieved gradually and in an evolutionary fashion, that society is progressing and improving. They believe that Christians should not only be engaged in evangelising and proselytising but also in trying to improve the world and in eliminating evils. Thus, they believe in political and social activism.
[By the way, marxist eschatology has a similar dichotomy—revolutionary marxists and evolutionary social democrats.]
- in Hist. 316, it was argued that the sudden and large growth of Protestant mission activity from the 1790s was mostly an effect of postmillennialism; it was part of the attempt to bring about the millennium by converting the entire world to Christianity.
- there have been long term swings between these two views, with each being more prominent during different periods—premillennialism in the 17th C, with postmillennialism in the late 18th and early 19th Cs. In the last half of the 19th C, premillennialism made a resurgence and is overwhelmingly the view of Christian fundamentalists nowadays with only a few exceptions.
- late in the 19th C, more and more missionaries were premillennialists. Some were in the regular, older Protestant churches; thus, many in the Church Missionary Society (low Anglican church) were premillennialists.
- however, as fundamentalist churches were founded, in North America especially, they began to send a flood of missionaries and almost all were premillennialists.
Significance:
- both of these traditions provided ideas and conceptions that could be drawn upon by Africans; however, they influence behaviour in very different ways.
The Millennium
- this is a vision of an ideal society, but the content can be very different.
- e.g., in the fundamentalist church I grew up in, they talked about the Kingdom of God in very literal terms of Christ forming a theocratic kingdom in which Christians who had been caught up in Christ’s return would have positions of power and influence (be princes and rulers).
- all were people of relatively low status (working class or lower middle class) and little power in this life. However, in the millennial society, they would get their just desserts and the social and political order would be reversed. This is why the focus is on preparing for the next life.
- on the other hand, Samuel Hopkins, an American divine in the late 18th C and president of Yale Univ., was a postmillennialist whose view of the millennium was strongly influenced by the Enlightenment.
- his evolutionary view saw the millennium as a projection of existing society with most of the bad aspects removed and the good things made universal.
- everyone would live in moderation and according to the golden mean (in the enlightenment it was argued that a lot of sickness and ill health were the result of eating and drinking too much, too much immoderation in sex, etc.). Moderation would allow more even and equitable distribution of wealth; the extremes of wealth and poverty would be evened out.
- also, he predicted continued technological advances which would increase wealth and contribute to the elimination of poverty while advances in medicine would reduce ill-health. The result would be that most people would live out their allotted years, rather than die prematurely as was the case for most people at the time.
- with universal peace, the horrors, the death and destruction of wars would be eliminated; with everyone being basically good persons, problems of crime would mostly disappear. People would not prey on each other and instead would love and help each other.
- but this would not be heaven; normal life would go on: people would be born, grow up, grow old and eventually die. However, the experience would not be the way it tended to be for most people—i.e., nasty, brutish and short. People would have more time to pursue the arts and what we would call personal development.
- you can see how similar this view is to Marx’s view of the communist society. In fact, late in the 19th C, many people holding these views tended to become ‘social gospellers’ or Christian socialists, probably, the most important support for the CCF and NDP tradition in Canada.
- the idea of the millennium allows everyone to fill out their own content. Hopkins’ view was an enlightenment vision of an ideal society.
- Africans too could visualise what an ideal society would be like; for the most part it would not be different: i.e., they accepted the idea of a Christian and ‘civilised’ society which conformed to the cultural norms of the West; however, this did not preclude keeping certain ‘national’ customs if the ‘heathen’ elements were eliminated.
- however, what loomed especially large as negative, as evil, in society as they knew it (I am drawing upon my own research in South Africa) was discrimination and inequality based on colour and racial distinctions.
What happened with the Xhosa?
- in the 1860s and 70s, many Xhosa began to convert to Christianity and at the same time they set out to acquire the necessary qualifications of Christianity and ‘civilisation’; there was great interest and enthusiasm for education. The outlook of the Christianity they were adopting was postmillennialist.
- in the 1870s and 80s, the newly emerging leaders were extremely optimistic about the future. They were certainly aware of the huge amount of discrimination and prejudice facing them, but they believed that Christianity and civilisation (via education) would gradually dissolve that:
- as Africans got the necessary qualifications, any superficial justification would be eliminated;
- as whites got more education, white prejudice, which was rooted in ignorance, would also be eliminated.
- thus, they believed that the spread of Christianity and education would inevitably lead to a society where skin colour and similar superficial racial differences would become irrelevant and where everyone would be assessed and judged by their character and talents.
- their ideal society would be non-racial, and equality would be available to anyone who obtained the necessary qualifications; in this sense, they accepted the idea that equality was something that had to be earned, but they also pointed out that many whites were neither very Christian nor very civilised.
- this generation very quickly became very active politically (disconcertingly so for many missionaries who would rather they spent their time and energy evangelising and staying out of politics; however, other missionaries accepted and even supported their political activities, arguing that it was better to be seeking to gain their objectives by political means than by warfare).
- they were similar to postmillennial activists elsewhere; for example, they became highly involved in temperance activities. Thus, they campaigned to get the liquor laws changed or to get existing laws restricting the sale of liquor to be enforced more strictly. Some even went so far as to advocate prohibition on the sale of alcohol to Africans entirely. I have argued— see my “The Roots of African Nationalism in the Cape Colony: Temperance, 1866-1898,” International Journal of African Historical Studies, 13, 2 (1980), 197-213—that temperance played the same role for Africans that it did for women in the late 19th C; i.e., it was a training ground for political organisations, plus a motivator because it showed the need for more political influence if they were going to get the laws changed.
- in the 1880s, Africans focused on getting Africans registered as voters, very successfully too as the numbers rose dramatically; in a very dramatic election in 1884, African voters were able to get the candidate they favoured elected.
- however, the 1880s were a high point; over the next decades (in fact one could say until very recently in the 1990s), things tended to get worse for Africans most of the time—worse economically, worse politically, worse socially, etc.
- e.g., in the 1880s and 90s, the laws were changed to reduce access to the franchise;
- jobs, especially government jobs, became more restricted to whites;
- a cattle sickness hit South Africa in 1896 and destroyed much of African wealth; the worst drought since the 1820s hit in the first decade of the 20th C and further impoverished Africans;
- laws began to be passed that favoured white farmers against African farmers (Glen Grey Act in 1894, more legislation in 1st decade of 20th C, and much more after the creation of the Union starting with the Native Land Act of 1913);
- 1890s==>World War 1 was a peak for racism everywhere in the West, and it affected the Cape Colony too.
- the point of all this is that the deterioration of their situation created a growing crisis for Africans who had accepted this optimistic postmillennial tradition: instead of progress and evolution towards an ideal non-racial society and greater opportunities, Africans were experiencing regression—increased prejudice and discrimination and diminished opportunities.
What do you do when faced by a reality that seems to contradict your cosmology?
- You can change your cosmology. Coincidentally, during the same period, premillennialism with its more pessimistic assessment of the trend of events in society was spreading in the West and it spread to South Africa too. I shall argue that this explains some very significant developments in this period 1890-1914. This was when the separatist, independent African churches emerged, and to a large extent, the people who joined them were adopting cosmologies that were more consistent with premillennial views. We shall be studying separatist churches in more detail in the next topic.
- You can retain your view of the ultimate outcome but recognise that its achievement is neither as direct nor as easy as had been presumed. Thus, the non-racial society will have to be worked for and struggled for. As a result, you have to organise for the struggle.
- in the Cape Colony, political organisations began to be created in the 1890s and even more in the 1st decade of the 20th C.
- with the creation of the Union of S. A. in 1910, Africans began to organise nationally; in 1912, they created the South African Native National Congress, later renamed the ANC.
What were they working to achieve?
- a non-racial society which would grant equality to anyone who qualified on the basis of education, civilisation and Christianity.
- any history of the ANC soon shows the involvement of African Christians.
- ordained clergymen have not only been active, but have frequently held high office in the ANC and other organisations in the inter war period; becoming a preacher and ordained clergyman was usually the highest occupation and status which Africans could achieve; only slowly did a few get university degrees and professional qualifications in fields such as medicine and law. But the ministry was usually the easiest and most open.
- many others have been very active lay persons in their churches; a well-known example was Albert Luthuli (awarded a Nobel peace prize) who was a devout and active Anglican.
- overwhelmingly too, these political activists were people who remained in the regular churches (Anglican, Methodist, Presbyterian, Congregational, and to a lesser degree Roman Catholic) rather than those who joined the secessions and independent churches. A very recent example in the 1970s and 80s was Rev. Allan Boesak, of the Coloured Dutch Reformed Church.