ABSTRACT
Colonialism and Christianity still bear the most significant influences in the construction of African societies since the nineteenth century. Christianity was less popular than Islam in Africa until the mid-nineteenth century when a significant number of African societies south of the Sahara were influenced by Christian missionary evangelism. Since then the number of Africans that profess the Christian faith has doubled every two decades and is estimated at over 350 million today.2 This phenomenal increase has led to unprecedented social and cultural change in sub-Saharan Africa, where Christianity rather than Islam, has made the greatest impact. Yet, Christianity made its most significant inroad in the late nineteenth century, a period that coincided with European imperial expansion in Africa. The historical coincidence, and peculiar worldview of both European agents (missions and imperialists), became important in shaping the African world from the late nineteenth century. That both missionary endeavor and colonial expansion occurred during the same period, was a significant factor in the forms of compromise and contestations that occurred between the two.
