CMS "Yes" Magazine has an edition focussed on Samuel Ajayi Crowther this month. Crowther was born in Osogun in the Yoruba country, West Africa (approximately modern Nigeria). Gareth Sturdy writes that "at Crowthers birth, a tribal diviner had forbidden that the boy enter any of the local deity cults because hewould grow up to be a servant of Olorun, the God of Heaven". He was snatched and sold into slavery, to Portuguese slave traders in 1821. The ship he was being carried on was attacked by the British Navy, half of the slaves do not survive the attack. Crowther, along with the rest of the survivors was taken to Freetown, Sierra Leone. After time spent with African Christians he found a faith and eventually became a Bishop. Professor Andrew Wallis says of Crowther, "Certainly he's the representative of a new way of life, which is shown by Christian Worship, and dress, and other things, but it doesn't interfere with a sense of belonging, of congruence with local society. He's not a stranger in that society... there is a connection with a still unbroken African world-view" He was and is renown for his humility, though he is regarded as a hero of Western Africa, founding the Niger Mission, an indigenous mission and translated a Yoruba Bible. He is said to have pointed to the monotheistic roots of Yoruba religion, saying that a call to Christ was a return to a higher belief, Sturdy again writes "By extension elements of traditional Yoruba belief were said to prefigure and prophecy Jesus. The adoption of faith in Christ. therefore, was not a rejection but an evolution of Yoruba belief" ... two well known sayings of his indicate the kind of man Crowther was...
May I ever have a fresh desire to be engaged in the service of Christ, for it is perfect freedom.
I do not despise the day of small things and can discover the leadings of Providence in things of this description.
Sadly, his story doesn't end the way one might hope... In 1885 The Congress of Berlin legitimised European claims over Africa territory, and rights of navigation on the Niger and Congo. The following European Missionaries denigrated the mission of Crowther, took over his work and accusing him of being weak pointed to him as an example of the need for Western Mission/Christianity. He died a broken man in 1891. I guess one could say he lived at a time when the physical enslavement of African people was being replaced by a religious/spiritual colonialism.
Technorati Tags: Anti-slavery: Church: Mission: Religion: theology
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