Crisis Yet Continuity

Blantyre Synod, the section of the Presbyterian Church found in southern Malawi, is gearing up to mark its 150th anniversary in October this year. It takes its name, of course, from the town in Lanarkshire, Scotland, where David Livingstone was born. It was Livingstone who identified what is now Malawi as a site for Christian missionary work, particularly by his fellow Scots.

Some of them duly took up the challenge soon after his death in 1873 and it is their work that forms the origin of this network of churches that counts more than 1,000,000 members today. Every Malawian schoolchild has an outline knowledge of the life and contribution of David Livingstone. But not everyone is aware of how far his ideas stamped the life of Blantyre Mission.

This is what prompted me to write a new book for the upcoming sequicentenary: Crisis Yet Continuity: Blantyre Mission 1876-1928. The early years of the Mission already have a considerable literature but my contention is that the existing scholarship is so preoccupied with the crisis that engulfed the Mission in the late 1870s that it fails to do justice to the elements of continuity that kept it going. 

Crisis there undoubtedly was, especially as the missionaries resorted to violent punishments as they mistakenly sought to establish civil order. Accounts of extreme corporal punishment make grim reading.  No wonder that this became a national scandal and there were calls for the Mission to be closed down.

The reason it continued, I suggest, is down to a core of talented African leaders who had gravitated to the Mission, some exceptional women whose contribution has long been overlooked, and some underestimated missionaries who managed to redeem themselves. Vital also were Livingstone’s ideas which were a guiding light throughout – African vernacular language as a vehicle of Christian faith, fascination with African life and culture, anti-racism, promotion of African leadership, social transformation and commitment to educational opportunity. When we launched the book last week, the consensus was that these ideas have stood Blantyre Synod in good stead.

Available at: https://africanbookscollective.com/books/crisis-yet-continuity/