ABSTRACT
In general there have been three periods in which Africa came into contact with Christianity (Malishi 1987: ix). The first period was the Christianization of Egypt which according to the narrative of the Coptic Church started with the evangelist St Mark in the middle of the first century. The second period is the fifteenth and sixteenth century mission that started with the Iberian ‘discoveries’. The third period is the nineteenth and twentieth century mission which started with two European revolutions. Maybe it is too early but we can add a fourth stage, the stage of the reversed mission of bringing the Gospel from Africa back to Europe. As this chapter is situated in the part on Christianity in the Modern Era I will focus on nineteenth and twentieth century mission. Due to my understanding of mission studies as the hermeneutic reflection on mission practice I will start with mission practices and continue thereafter with mission theories. A systematization of mission practices and theories into models, or putting concrete persons into specific boxes, is always a simplification of reality and arbitrary to a certain extent, dependent on the author’s preferences and presuppositions. I take the issue of continuity or discontinuity between the Christian message and African culture as the focus for my description and analysis, and wish to explain that I am most acquainted with East African mission practice and theory.
