Unambiguously Pro-Poor

An article called Mission Schools Opened World to Africans, but Left an Ambiguous Legacy by Samuel G Freedman was published in the New York Times on December 27, 2013.  Here are a few clips:

The accomplishments of mission schools were both intentional and not. Their founders and faculties clearly parted ways with colonial leaders by believing in the educability of black Africans…

“I’m not making missionaries heroes,” said Richard H. Elphick, a historian at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and the author of The Equality of Believers, a book about Protestant missionaries in South Africa. “Missionaries and other white Christians were alarmed by the idea that the equality of all people before God means they should be equal in public life. But the equality of believers is an idea they dropped into South Africa. And it was constantly reinforced in the schools. And that made it a dangerous idea.”

Olufemi Taiwo offered a similarly nuanced endorsement, and he did so from two perspectives: as the product of a mission education in his native Nigeria and as a Cornell University professor with expertise in African studies.

“Under colonialism, there’s a tension between the missions and the colonial authorities,” said Dr. Taiwo, author of the 2010 book How Colonialism Preempted Modernity in Africa. “There was a missionary idea that black people could be modern. And most churches cannot come out and say some people are not human. So you might have a patronizing attitude, but if you don’t think Africans can benefit from education, why would you set up schools?”

Certainly, the model of mission education was not unique to Africa. White American missionaries played a similarly complicated role as emblems of both modernity and noblesse oblige in China before the Communist revolution. Many mission colleges in South Africa modeled their practical courses in industry and agriculture — a curriculum known as differentiated education or adapted education — on those of black schools in the United States such as Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute. 

Unique South African Paradigm

Just as that Chinese Church, planted by missionaries, survived on its own and has emerged as a force in that setting, one cannot lump South Africa together with most other countries in one respect.  The Union of South Africa emerged early in the 20th century by amalgamating some of the Boer Republics with some of the British Colonies.  Other than Ethiopia, which was never colonized, South Africa was really the first state to become recognized as independent.  (Although internally, as we know, it was ruled by a repressive minority, and thus the last to be free.)

But its missiology is unique.  In many Catholic settings – in Latin America or in Quebec – the development paradigm was to build a church in a strategic location – for a town would grow up around it.  Even Europe evolved similarly, with once deep rural monasteries becoming the hub of trade and thus of urbanization in their vicinity.

Afrikanerdom evolved similarly, with the Boer communities building churches with high steeples visible from afar.  Each and every church supported two clergy – the Pastor and the Missionary.  The Boers (Afrikans for “farmers”) in the church’s catchment area were visited regularly by the Pastor.  An aside is than many farmhouses had a “parson’s lounge” that was only used on such occasions; the rest of the time the family would socialize in either the kitchen or a “family room”.

On these visits, the Missionary would also come along.  But his ministry was to “the blacks”.  So while the Pastor met the white family, the Missionary ministered to the farm workers – evangelizing, teaching and counseling.  This is why all South African cultures have become so thoroughly saturated with the Gospel.  Even more so than in the better known paradigm of a Mission school in a deep rural part of Africa – like Fort Hare where Nelson Mandela, Oliver Tambo, Chris Hani, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Robert Sobukwe and Robert Mugabe all studied.  That more familiar paradigm provided some access to education for selected Africans who eventually became part of the elite.  Whereas the Dutch Reformed church basically had much broader coverage – on a farm to farm basis.  South Africa was thus deeply Christianized, even while deeply divided racially.


The Equality of Believers

Once more the chickens are coming home to roost - on the theme of Disparity or Inequity.  And once again, there is a dialectic… for example, Pope Francis I has spoken out about this issue globally; there is too much Disparity between rich and poor, generally.  Surely there is significance in his choice of name – honouring St Francis of Assisi. 

But in South Africa, the peculiarity is that this tends to line up along the usual fault lines of race.  Not entirely, though, as a black middle class is growing.  You often hear references to “black diamonds” or to “Buppies” (black urban professionals).  Some say that this suggests that apartheid is being replaced by a class system – black diamonds on top, then Buppies in the upper middle class, then the middle class, then the working class (represented largely by COSATU), with an underclass of the unemployed.

Once more, white Christians in South Africa are in an enclave.  Whether that will some day become a white ghetto that they cannot escape depends on whether and how they can cease to be patronizing and rather promote wealth generation projects – particularly among the unemployed.

The Indian community has been present in South Africa for much longer than whites.  It somehow manages to both remain distinct and engaged.  Under apartheid Indians were “non-whites” so they now enjoy some of the advantages of affirmative action (BEE).  But on the whole they too remain advantaged - generally wealthier and better educated.


Putting the right foot forward

My basic proposition is this: reducing economic disparity leads to social peace.  Yet so often in South Africa, the fight for social justice has eclipsed the struggle for economic freedom.  Given the history of racism not to mention sexism, one can understand why.  But still, that is like coming in the back door.

Like the above mentioned “curriculum known as differentiated education or adapted education — on those of black schools in the United States… practical courses in industry and agriculture” should be the priority.  Job creation, entrepreneurship, wealth generation, enterprise development, poverty eradication, micro-loans, business mentoring, incubation (call it what you will) are the new focus of Christian Outreach.  And “the haves” should be investing generously and unambiguously in “the have-nots”.  Or the church will become irrelevant…