History questions not worth their own thread V

[cybrxkhan]

So how widespread was Christianity in Kingdom of Kongo after it was introduced by the Portuguese, and did it mix significantly with the local beliefs or retained its similarities with the Catholic church?

Many Kongolese accepted Christianity - so there wasn't any secret religion or that - and European visitors were often surprised at how much of the Bible and Christian doctrine was known by everyone even in isolated regions of the Kingdom. Still, they did integrate aspects of their own cultural worldview and old religious beliefs into their form of Christianity, though I don't remember exactly too many specifics (I took a course on African history last year, and we spent a week or two on Kongo and its Christianization). For instance, one notable incident around 1600 was the rise of a certain religious figure - I forgot her name, but she claimed to have spoken with Saint Anthony (who was depicted looking like the Kongolese, I think) via religious visions. The "visions" she had were of the kind that traditional, pre-Christian Kongolese religious figures might have had. Anyhow she attempted some sort of uprising and tried to stop the civil war that was going on at the time (or something like that) but was defeated and burned at stake by the Kongolese authorities.

So yes there was quite some syncretism, but the Kongolese were reasonably devout Christians nevertheless.

 

[Lord Baal]

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[cybrxkhan]

The leadership class converted. I'm not sure if there are any records allowing us to know anything beyond that.

There are records from European travelers, as I mentioned above, who discuss their surprise and shock at how well-informed even lowly commoners were about Christian doctrine. Now of course they could have been exaggerating, though from what I remember learning in that class there's nothing to really suggest they were or weren't, but at the least it is certain that a large portion of the Kongolese population believed in and accepted Christianity to some degree - and beyond just simple syncretism. Additionally as the example of my Joan of Arc-seque figure above demonstrates, Christianity was very comfortably integrated and made a core component of the Kongolese world view. I wish. I still had my book on her rebellion that I needed for that class, it would've been very useful for the discussion here as it delves a lot into the nature of Kongolese Christianity.



As a completely random side note, Kongolese monarchs did use holy war against pagans as a justification for attacking some of their neighbors.

 

[Plotinus]

The woman you're talking about is Donna Beatrice, who was around in the early eighteenth century, not seventeenth.

With questions like this, it makes a lot of difference what period you're talking about. Beatrice was two centuries after the initial evangelisation of Kongo, and in that intervening two centuries there had been further activity by western missionaries, notably the Italian Capuchins. So this was a very different situation from that under Mvembe Nzinga Afonso.

Also with regard to Kongo, a systemic problem with Christianity there is that while there may have been a lot of lay worshippers, there was no indigenous church structure. The priests and, as far as we know, missionaries were all Europeans, and there weren't enough of them. So the church inevitably declined. By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the situation was basically: a bunch of missionaries would come along, convert lots of people, and go away again; and some time later a new bunch of missionaries would turn up, find that all the converts had disappeared, and start again; and so on.

 

[cybrxkhan]

The woman you're talking about is Donna Beatrice, who was around in the early eighteenth century, not seventeenth.

With questions like this, it makes a lot of difference what period you're talking about. Beatrice was two centuries after the initial evangelisation of Kongo, and in that intervening two centuries there had been further activity by western missionaries, notably the Italian Capuchins. So this was a very different situation from that under Mvembe Nzinga Afonso.

Also with regard to Kongo, a systemic problem with Christianity there is that while there may have been a lot of lay worshippers, there was no indigenous church structure. The priests and, as far as we know, missionaries were all Europeans, and there weren't enough of them. So the church inevitably declined. By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the situation was basically: a bunch of missionaries would come along, convert lots of people, and go away again; and some time later a new bunch of missionaries would turn up, find that all the converts had disappeared, and start again; and so on.

Hmm. That's odd. From what I remember of the book I read (again, though the focus was Donna Beatrice, the Church never declined that badly - if I remember correctly the locals kept asking for more missionaries and priests to come not because they were losing knowledge of Christianity per se, but because there weren't enough native Kongolese missionaries to perform rites and what not. And any decline of the Church was more so because of the rise of non-Christian states in the region that nipped away at Kongo's power.

But anyhow don't quote me on that, it's been a while since I've read the book and I don't have it anymore, so... yeah. I would say though that Lord Baal's observation that the nobility and upper-classes were largely converted would be correct, for various reasons.

 

[Lord Baal]

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[ReindeerThistle]

innonimatu PMed me today and says he doesn't have the time right now. (I had asked him a specific question). So, you're on your own... for now.

 

[Lord Baal]

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[Plotinus]

With this kind of thing it's important to remember the differences between different kinds of Christianity. Catholicism depends upon church infrastructure in a way that Protestantism doesn't. It takes a lot of time and resources to train a Catholic priest, and it also takes a lot of commitment to become one. If either the resources or the candidates aren't forthcoming, you can't have a properly functioning Catholic community, because it's utterly dependent on priests. This isn't the case with Protestants, most of whom don't believe in priests in the first place; if you've got a Protestant community, pretty much anyone can lead it and they don't have to commit themselves to doing so for their whole lives. Protestantism is therefore much easier to set up in a new culture and leave, and it will run itself. So the fact that it was Catholicism that came to Kongo rather than Protestantism is very relevant here.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Well thanks everyone for some answers and interesting discussion on the subject.

 

[Masada]

How accurate is this guys?

 

[r16]

ı have heard from people who have lived in the US , and ı don't mean the "shady" types ı hang around with , that it seems every street in America has its own Church and ı must say it seems every Church has its own conspirator . What are these guys , some sort of Protestants ?

 

[Lord Baal]

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[Arakhor]

Are you serious, Masada? You post a Jack Chick comment and ask how accurate it is? This is the chap who's convinced that Roman Catholicism is some sort of diabolic cult, amongst many other things. His comics are a huge bundle of crazy fundamentalist talking-points, some of which are probably even more conservative than the usual stuff we get around here.

 

[Masada]

Roman Catholicism isn't a diabolic cult?

 

[Arakhor]

Our survey says: No.

 

[Lord Baal]

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[Plotinus]

It would have been better with more Batman. But that's true of everything.

 

[H4run]

How accurate is this guys?

I think the author try to imposing his "wish" on how the event should be, by creating the conspiracy between Islam and Roman catholic. First of all there are different interpretation between Islam and Catholics or Christian in general on how they see certain event, the easiest is regarding Jesus, as the Catholics believe Jesus is God himself manifest in the form of human being, while we muslim believe that Jesus (pbuh) is part of the chain of the prophet, just like Moses (pbuh), Solomon (pbuh) or Muhammad (pbuh). Also other event like what happen to the peoples of Noah (pbuh)? or whom is the one who been sacrifice by Abraham (pbuh)? And many other.

So we have very separated view regarding how we understand the history, how we understand the Oneness (not unity or league of God) of God (monotheism or Tauhid), how we understand the divinity of Jesus which in Christianity there almost no dispute that Jesus is Godly divine, but the dispute between the Monophysite, Coptic, Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant (etc) is regarding how Godly divine Jesus is, while the Muslim in oppositely state that Jesus is nothing but a creation, a man, a mortal, a prophet that not different than other prophet.

To say that Islam is a part of Catholic sect, at least they must have share the fundament and crucial things which is the view on Jesus divinity. But this attempt on seeing that Islam is nothing but a copy of Christianity is not started by the Protestant but way way before that, so what protestant state here is not at all a new things, it just a re-manufacture of what the early Christian (before protestant) want peoples to believe on what Islam is way before they (protestant) come to existent.

And to state Waraqa Ibn Nawfal is a catholic it is a one way that we can see how the author want to fit his wish into his interpretation. He is not a catholic, most probably by the way the classic narration narrate him he can be Arian (who may be run from the persecution) but that also from my own assumption that have no prove and even contradict to how his view regarding the divinity of Jesus. According to the Quran, hadith, the record of the living sunnah also classic muslim historian (you can easily refer to the testimony of Salam Al Farisi) there were minority sect of Christian at that time that see Jesus as the prophet of God not as the manifestation of God.

While Khadijah in all recorded history was an idol worshipper before Islam, not Christian, so all this claim are impose to be fit with the wishful thinking of the author.

I can claim back, that both the Iconoclast and Protestant appearance are the effect of the influence of Islam toward Christianity, I see this claim far more logical eventhough I never bother or discuss about this, but in comparison I think that more valid than the claim in your's link. And what do you think about that Masada?

 

[ReindeerThistle]

It would have been better with more Batman. But that's true of everything.

Except for Watchmen... fine without Batman.