West African Christianity
by Lamin Sanneh
Publishers: George Allen S. Unwin, 1983

Reviewed in Orita, 16:1, 67-68

A great deal of material has been published since Latourette's monumental work, yet most of it is inaccessible to the average student. Lamin Sanneh has attempted to gather recent findings on West African Christianity into a single volume. In contrast to many recent authors, such as Ayandele, he is quite sympathetic to the missionary movement, yet stresses the role of Africans themselves in evangelization.

Chapter 1 deals with early (pre-Islamic) Christian history in Africa. Chapters 2 and 3 cover the middle (Portuguese) period, and overlap the contents of my own The Catholic Church in Tropical Africa 1444-1850 [See ORITA. June 1983, p.651, which appeared simultaneously. On these chapters I have only a few factual criticisms: On p.30 he refers to a letter of the Franciscan missionaries to King João III of Portugal mentioning the fact of human sacrifice in Benin. Lamin Sanneh says, "The reference to human sacrifice occurs for the first time in that letter and, surprisingly, is not repeated in later sources." This is contradicted by the report of Angelo de Valencia in 1651, referred to on p. 46. On p.40 he states that the new Olu of Warri was "Dom Antonio Domingos, son of Domingos by a Portuguese wife." I discuss on pp. 49 & 54 of my book the discrepancy of the sources regarding the lineage of Antonio Domingos. Bonaventura da Firenze says that he was born of an African wife of the former Olu after his Portuguese wife died in childbirth along with her child. Pedro da Cunha says that this wife was childless. On p.51 Lamin Sanneh ends the story of Benin with the attempted visit in 1748 by Illuminato di Poggitello. Further contacts with Warri Christianity up to 1820 are mentioned on pp.59-60 of my book.

As for interpretation, Lamin Sanneh attributes the failure of this phase of Christianity to its overly close identification with existing European interests. The Africans were not racially prejudiced, yet adopted Christianity in order to attract the benefits of European trade and assistance. When African bargaining power was strong it resisted evangelization. Only in the 19th century did new forces come to erode that resistance and compel Africa to accept new influences. Lamin Sanneh is right in his analysis of the political and economic factors that permitted or prevented evangelization, yet for the period under discussion not enough credit is given to the strength of Christian roots once they take even the slightest hold. Benin may have been a failure, but several visitors to Warri over the years witnessed to a church maintained with crosses, statues and, candles, and processions and prayers carried on after many years without a priest. This reminds us more of the Nagasaki Catholics. It seems only the economic recession and radical breakdown of Warri society in 1848 caused the demise of Christian tradition for a time.

Chapters 4-8 survey the modern period: both mission foundations from abroad and the independent churches. This is the most valuable section of the book because of the wealth of information collected. It concludes with a chapter on the relations of Christianity with Islam and African traditional religions, which is particularly good. After all, the author is an Islamicist.