THE LIMITS OF MISSIONARY VISION

In her Pulitzer Prize winning book Imperial Reckoning historian Caroline Elkins describes how in the twilight of colonialism in Kenya the British confined thousands of Kikuyu in prison camps. The arbitrariness of incarceration under horrific conditions belied British claims of guiding a liberal democracy that was combating Mau Mau terrorism. Elkins' depiction of the Anglican Church is of special interest. On the one hand missionaries permitted to minister to detainees intensified their cynicism about British Christianity and deepened their loyalty to indigenous practices. The missionary message urged cooperation with colonial government and emulation of British decorum. On the other hand some clergy, such as Canon T. F. C. Bewes of the Church Missionary Society, became noted in the early 1950s in Britain and Kenya for criticism of British policy toward the Mau Mau. Bewes drew upon twenty years service in Kenya and extensive contacts there to become convinced that charges of British brutality were justified. Yet Bewes, like other missionaries, felt the church needed good relations with colonial authority. He moved cautiously in public while pressing his concerns quietly through official channels.

Long before the twilight of empire in the mid-twentieth century the colonial branches of the Church of England faced similar tensions though rarely in the face of repression. Colonial Anglicans genuinely intended to create indigenous ecclesiastical offshoots. But their manner of doing so relied heavily upon British assumptions about the nature of order and British prerogative in guiding its development.