ABSTRACT
The initial attack by the missions upon African custom was made irrespective of the general significance of such custom within African society. B. Gutmann’s work for the Leipzig Mission was an extension of the Lutheran principle that in matters non-essential to the salvation of the soul, the Church should refrain from repressive interference, though warnings against excesses in such things might be necessary. The majority opinion among missions is that the attempt to build the Christian Church upon the traditional basis of African social structure is ‘romanticism’. Mission opinion is generally opposed to the retention of regularized pre-marital sex experience, though individual missionaries have regretted the ban consistently imposed by missions on such practices. A similar adaptation was successfully undertaken by the Universities’ Mission in Tanganyika, a factor contributing to the success of these modified rites being the absence of any physical operation upon the girl-candidates in the traditional rites of the tribes concerned.
