Huge crowds are gathering at Blantyre Mission this weekend to remember the founding of the mission on 23 October 1876. Residents have chosen to rename many places in Africa that were given European names during the colonial period. But if you ask people in Blantyre if they want to change the name of their city, they will just laugh. They are proud of the history that defines their city and especially of their link to the birthplace of David Livingstone.
When Alexander Hetherwick, the long-time leader of the Mission, wrote his account of its history in 1930 he sub-titled his book “How Livingstone’s Dream Came True.” It is an apt title since it was the ideas of David Livingstone that inspired the founding of the Mission and it remained remarkably consistent in its attempt to implement them. And Livingstone’s commitment to human dignity and passion for justice still hold a powerful appeal today.
Livingstone was a man of many parts, with flaws and blindspots like the rest of us, but the legacy he left in Blantyre Mission has enduring quality. One thing that was deeplly impressed upon him as he traversed the African continent is that there were going to be limits to what Europeans could do in Africa. If Christian missionary work was to be successful, he believed it would need to be led by Africans themselves.
Blantyre Mission is testament to the validity of his analysis. From the word go, the Scottish missionaries sought to promote African leadership in the life of the Mission. As well as offering education and training at the Mission itself, they sponsored some of their brightest students to undertake further studies at Lovedale in South Africa, at that time the most advanced educational institution in the whole of southern Africa.
When they returned, they became the spearhead of the Mission, establishing churches and schools across southern Malawi. When the Scottish missionaries became engulfed by a scandal in 1880 and almost all had to leave the service of the Mission, it was the African leadership that steadied the ship and ensured that it went on to flourish and to bear lasting fruit.
Missionaries these days rarely get a good press and some of the criticism they face is well deserved. Nevertheless, in the case of Blantyre Mission, there are more than a million Malawian Christians today who demonstrate that they got something right.
