SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This dissertation examines the religious, social, political and economic impact of Lubwa Mission of the Livingstonia Mission of the (United Free) Church of Scotland, The Livingstonia Mission stressed the education of Africans in practical skills and in particular qualities which were consonant with the Calvinistic ethic. The provision of education was a major method of evangelization. Lubwa Mission used a different model of evangelization from the rival Roman-Catholic White Fathers' Mission. For Livingstonia salvation was through individual faith in Christ; for the White Fathers the Sacraments, especially baptism, led to salvation. Lubwa Mission used literacy and intellectual agreement with the contents of the catechism as criteria for admission to church membership. New members were incorporated into the structure of the Mission as teachers, evangelists, catechists, or paid employees of the Mission. The converts were initially mainly young men, exhibiting a westernized style of life (use of language, food habits, clothing, house building, hygiene, child-rearing, relationship with their spouses). The period following the First World War saw the rapid expansion of the Mission, stimulated by an increased rivalry with the White Fathers Mission in the area of education. It led to rifts between families and clans and within families. The basic unity of the village, based on the kinship structure, was broken. Existing rifts were strengthened. It was a small elite of teachers and evangelists which tried to implement the demands of the Gospel in their daily lives and that of their families. In the 1940s Lubwa missionaries came under criticism by young mission teachers, who established a Chinsali Branch of the Northern Rhodesia African National Congress at Lubwa. Lubwa 'graduates' opposed plans to amalgamate or federate the Rhodesias. They used the structures of the Chuxch to politicize the district. In 1955 Lubwa was confronted with a break-away movement, the Lumpa Church, led by Alice Lenshina. Lubwa tried to meet this challenge by trying to transform the heavily institutionalized church, with paid offices, into a movement based on voluntary work. The establishment of a strong women's organization, the KBBK, helped to achieve this goal by the late 1960s. By 1967 Lubwa Church had been fully Africanised. It had also relinquished its role in health care and education.