Black critics of Lutheran Mission in Zululand and Natal in the 1950s, with particular emphasis on socio-political issues

Abstract

A survey in 1957 initiated by the Lutheran Missionary, Helge Fosseus, confirmed that Africans were highly critical of the missionaries, describing them as betrayers supporting the politics of the white oppressors. However, the missionaries perceived themselves as friends of the Africans; they condemned apartheid in internal conferences and contexts during the 1950s, although not in public. As a result, their condemnation of apartheid never reached the Africans. The sharp criticism of the missionaries regarding their lack of political involvement for the betterment of the Africans did not have any immediate effect on their practice as the first Lutheran public protest against apartheid took place as many as five years later, in 1962.