Missions in South Africa

The first missionary to arrive in South Africa was Georg Schmidt, a Moravian man sent in 1737 on behalf of the Protestant Dutch church [1]. He ended up converting and baptizing five locals and leaving a Bible behind for them.

Among first missionaries to the region of South Africa were Europeans. Though the Europeans came to South Africa in the 1800's with good intentions, they did not always understand enough about the local culture to be very effective. The missionaries were often highly culturally insensitive and imposed their own beliefs and culture on the locals rather than seeking to understand and integrate current culture with the belief system.

                                          Image retrieved from:http://www.victorianweb.org/sculpture/mossman/1.html

There is a statue of the famous missionary David Livingstone that "represents the missionary-traveller with a Bible in one hand and the other resting upon an axe"[2]. This mixture of salvation and violence is how many natives perceived missions. As time passed, Christian missionaries learned that they could be far more effective if they introduced practical, helpful skills along with their religious teachings. In Cape Town, they found an outlet for this through farming and were then able to be accepted and share the gospel while teaching practical farming techniques.

There is little information on missionaries from faiths other than Christianity in South Africa, although there is one prominent Jehovah's Witness who came to South Africa. Joseph Booth arrived in Africa in 1892 and established his "Baptist "Zambesi Industrial Mission" near Blantyre in Nyasaland (now Malawi)" [3]. He paid his workers six times more than the government or missions paid and set to sharing his version of the gospel. Jehovah's witnesses still praise him today as a hero of the faith.

Overall, mission work has impacted culture in various ways. It has helped South African trade, developed new farming methods and is credited as the method through which many natives learned to read. Missionaries helped increase education and influenced social attitudes and interactions for peace through the rocky times of the Apartheid and modern violence.



Sources Cited:
[1] "Missionary Heroes of South Africa" http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1701-1800/missionary-heroes-of-south-africa-11630223.html

[2] "Missionary Settlements in Southern Africa 1800-1925" http://www.sahistory.org.za/missionaries

[3] "Joseph Booth An African Legend" http://users.adam.com.au/bstett/JwJosephBooth.htm