Introduction

This biography has woven together a well-sourced empirical analysis of Kivebulaya's life with themes that his life illuminates. It has enabled an examination of historical periods, geographical regions and cultural themes that are often addressed separately. In doing so, it explains social change through the deliberate adoption of Protestant Christianity in East Africa and the much vaunted role of African missionaries. Christian teachers strove to become new men and women by travelling to neighbouring peoples and offering them a new way of living. Kivebulaya varied from his peers in the degree to which he adopted this change and his commitment to persuading others of its value. In focusing upon a figure who embraced evangelical Christianity more completely than many of his contemporaries, this study unambiguously exposes Christianity's motivational force in the reform of self and sociality in the region. Kivebulaya styled himself as a missionary and self-consciously allied himself with a worldwide Protestant movement. He did so on a regional stage and in response to local concerns. Throughout his life, Kivebulaya remained committed to the missionary ideal of Christian conversion and the spread of the Christian church beyond the boundaries of ethno-linguistic groups or colonial state apparatus because he was attracted to a universal organisation that claimed to transcend political, social and racial differences. He utilised novel technologies – literacy, Bible study, bicycles and biomedicine – to convince those around him of the power of a single spiritual being. He was a mild-mannered and self-effacing person who could yet exhibit steely resolve and self-discipline. Studying his life has allowed a re-examination of the connections between local, regional and global appropriation of Christianity. It has revealed the complex, historical particularity of religious change, offering a fine-grained study of the internal reasons why missionary Christianity developed distinct emphases that have influenced the subsequent history of the region. This short concluding chapter revisits some of the major themes.

Religious encounter

Religious encounter is based in historic relationships, situations and expectations. The range of responses to encounter – conversion, synthesis, indifference, resistance and so on – are formed of ‘multiple, interactive, and cumulative’ factors. An examination of religious encounter between Great Lakes beliefs and practices, Islam and Christianity has allowed Kivebulaya's motivations, choices and values to emerge, and provided the background to the complex conversion experiences of him and his associates.