Book contents
- Frontmatter
- 1 Introduction: postcolonial literature in a changing historical frame
- 2 Postcolonial fictions of slavery
- 3 Postcolonialism and travel writing
- 4 Missionary writing and postcolonialism
- 5 Postcolonial auto/biography
- 6 Orality and the genres of African postcolonial writing
- 7 Canadian literatures and the postcolonial
- 8 Postcolonialism and Caribbean literature
- 9 Postcolonialism and Arab literature
- 10 Postcolonialism and postcolonial writing in Latin America
- 11 Postcolonial writing in South Africa
- 12 Postcolonial literature in Southeast Asia
- 13 Postcolonial South Asian poetry
- 14 Postcolonial writing in India
- 15 Postcolonial writing in Australia and New Zealand
- 16 Indigenous writing in Canada, Australia and New Zealand
- 17 Postcolonial writing in Ireland
- 18 Postcolonial writing in Britain
- 19 Postcolonial writing in France
- 20 Postcolonial writing in Germany
- References
4 - Missionary writing and postcolonialism
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 January 2012
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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- 1 Introduction: postcolonial literature in a changing historical frame
- 2 Postcolonial fictions of slavery
- 3 Postcolonialism and travel writing
- 4 Missionary writing and postcolonialism
- 5 Postcolonial auto/biography
- 6 Orality and the genres of African postcolonial writing
- 7 Canadian literatures and the postcolonial
- 8 Postcolonialism and Caribbean literature
- 9 Postcolonialism and Arab literature
- 10 Postcolonialism and postcolonial writing in Latin America
- 11 Postcolonial writing in South Africa
- 12 Postcolonial literature in Southeast Asia
- 13 Postcolonial South Asian poetry
- 14 Postcolonial writing in India
- 15 Postcolonial writing in Australia and New Zealand
- 16 Indigenous writing in Canada, Australia and New Zealand
- 17 Postcolonial writing in Ireland
- 18 Postcolonial writing in Britain
- 19 Postcolonial writing in France
- 20 Postcolonial writing in Germany
- References
Summary
This chapter will emphasize the relation between evangelization and culture by arguing that official missionary discourse was one of necessary ambiguity, and that the missionary intervention in society and culture legitimized a counter discourse in postcolonial writing.
Coming in waves
The spread of Christianity on the African continent did not occur exclusively with European expansion outside the Western hemisphere from the fifteenth century onwards. Rather it came in several waves. Early Christianity in North Africa during the first and second centuries gave birth to a dynamic and vibrant Christian church, and produced eminent Fathers of the Church such as Saint Augustine, Bishop Cyprian and the theologian and writer Tertullian. The Islamic conquest of Africa soon overshadowed and almost completely erased Christianity in the region, and yet the church survived in different Coptic denominations in Egypt and Ethiopia.
A second wave of new evangelization took place during the fifteenth century, concomitant with the great discoveries spearheaded by European expansion outside the West. Portugal’s political power was coupled with the exertions of Portuguese explorers to conquer new territories with the seal and the approval of the Holy See, the highest Christian authority. Through papal bulls (Dum Diversas (January 1452) and Romanus Pontifex (January 1455) by Nicolas V, Inter Cetera (March 1456) by Callixte III, Aeterni Regis Clementia (June 1481) by Sixte IV, Dum Fide Constantium (1514) and Dumdum Pro Parte (1516) by Leon X), the popes granted to the kings of Portugal the full right to conquer territories, and at the same time to bring the Christian faith into these newly conquered spaces.
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- The Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature , pp. 81 - 106Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012
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