Publisher's Synopsis
Brethren in Christ Church Among the Ndebele takes off from a theoretical framework including views of Liberation Theology that Latin American writers espoused. It focuses, mostly, on the history of the Brethren in Christ Church in Zimbabwe and that of the Ndebele among whom it settled in 1898. Perhaps guided by Rudyard Kiplingas The White Manas Burden, the early missionaries preached a mixing of Christianity and westernization, causing some Africans to question and resist its mission. However, Cecil J. Rhodes viewed BICC missionaries as useful partners in subduing the then-rebellious Ndebele in the Matopos areaaallegedly writing Rev. Jesse Engle saying: amissionaries are cheaper and better.a No wonder, when the liberation war in Zimbabwe intensified, that the BICC became a target of attacks resulting in the forced withdrawal of all missionariesaand a hasty turning over of power to ill-prepared African leaders.
