On Christianity and Sociopolitical Change

Part I of an article by Hopkins (1966) presents a "fairly general and theoretical model to describe the mechanism of recruitment to Christianity and its implications for social change." This model suggests that in becoming a Christian, the African necessarily breaks with traditional society. As a Christian he learns "skills, habits, symbols, and goals" appropriate to modern roles. He then "defects" from the church and enters the modern sector of society. Thus "the role of Christian is seen as an intervening variable or learning experience between that of participant in a traditional society and participant in the nascent national community." There are two major criticisms of this approach. First, the nature of the "skills, habits, symbols, and goals" that the Christian learns is not clarified nor is the manner by which they are acquired and their relationship to the modern sectors specified. Second, his discussion of the transition from Christian adherence to participation in the modern sector of the society overemphasizes the disjunction between Christianity and roles in that sector. To take up the first of these criticisms: we have here an assumption regarding the socialization process undergone by Christian converts without sufficient evidence regarding the content of this socialization. What was it that was taught and learned? As examples, Hopkins mentions the rejection of polygyny and the use of bride price. The rejection of these norms involved separation from tribal society in some areas thus creating an appropriate setting for new socialization. Nevertheless the relationship of these new norms of Christian marriage to the "modern roles" is unclear. For instance, many African Christians remain polygynous (though Unconfirmed) to this day, but participate actively in the modern sector. Hopkins also mentions in a footnote (11) that missions employed Africans in such jobs as carpenters, bricklayers, cooks, etc., skills relevant to the modern sector, but the number actually employed and directly trained by missionaries in these occupations is too small to substantiate Hopkins' causal argument. It is education, of course, that was the major agent of socialization to modern ways for Africans. Missionaries were deeply involved in setting up schools right from the beginning of their occupation of new areas and until recently the vast majority of schools at all levels were under missionary, not government control.1 Hopkins barely mentions schools, however, in his discussion of the process of missionary influence. This omission leads him to overemphasize the role of the missionary or Christianity, as such, in the socialization process. Missionaries founded schools, but most of them did not do much of the actual teaching except in the very early days. While to be a student in a mission school often involved conversion to that school's denomination it can be argued that it was the student's relationship * Raymond F. Hopkins, "Christianity and Sociopolitical Change in Sub-Saharan Africa." Social Forces 44 (June 1966): 555-562. Words and short phrases in quotes are from this article. We wish to acknowledge support for the data reanalysis from the Council for Intersocietal Studies, Northwestern Uiiiversity. 1 This was especially true for the former British and Belgium African countries in Hopkins' sample (Scanlon, 1966 :8-11). In 1923 in English-speaking Africa (excluding South Africa) there were some 6,000 mission schools and just over 100 government schools (Tucker, 1966:49).