Missionary imperialism and colonial warfare: London Missionary Society attitudes to the South African War, 1899-1902

Abstract

During the nineteenth century, southern Africa was one of the most active missionary fields in the world, and the London Missionary Society (LMS) had come to assume a leading role in the shaping of religious attitudes among educated blacks and white settlers in the region. The formative influence of early LMS missionaries in South Africa provided a firm ideological base from which later Congregational ministers were to address religious and political issues. LMS missionaries had arrived in South Africa with a well-articulated programme which had its roots in the Evangelical tradition. Richard Elphick exaggerates when he observes that in this respect there exists a structural parallel between missionaries and revolutionaries, especially in the context of the late nineteenth century. His hypothesis suggests that missionaries affected southern African society so profoundly that it would be nai’ve to confine their influence merely to the religious sphere. Like their Nonconformist (Free Church) counterparts in Britain,’ Evangelical missionaries in South Africa constituted a self-conscious 6lite, autonomous socially and economically andcommitted to changing the order of things. Such an argument is generally acceptable, though it requires some qualification. But it is too sweeping a generalization to state, as Elphick does, that ‘they aspired to comprehensive upheavals that would affect all groups, all regions, and all aspects of life in South Africa’. Missionary impact was essentially confined to mission stations which were often severely isolated and extremely insular.