Indigenous Culture and Western Christianity: An Assessment of Wimbum Experience with the Baptist Mission, 1927-2008

Abstract

Purpose: The advent and spread of Baptist Mission Christianity in Mbumland from 1927 constituted one of the major determinants of cultural transformation in the area. The process was catalysed by the multifaceted nature of the Baptist Mission’s approach at Proselytization – evangelism, education and health. As a consequence, knowledge of Baptist Mission activities in Mbumland and beyond was commonplace.  Like most write-ups with ethnocentric slant, incipient literature on Christianity in Mbumland, emphasized the debilitating effects of the impinging culture on indigenous cultural life ways.

Methodology: This article employs primary and authoritative secondary data to argue that the spread of the Baptist faith in Mbumland between 1927 and 2008 rather led to culture sharing as the contemporary practice of the faith exuded a blend of both cultures.

Results: The study therefore demonstrates that while Mbumland was being Christianised, Christianity itself imbibed Wimbum values and adopted an indigenous complexion specially to suit the practical circumstances.

Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: The study positions itself within a peculiar academic niche which emphasizes that the advent of the Baptist Mission in Mbumland led to indigenous culture simultaneously affecting and being affected by Christian values. While extant works in this thematic specialisation have often either emphasized the effects of one of the variables on the other, the peculiarity of this work is its midway position which spotlights the sharing mechanisms wherein, indigenous culture affected and was being affected by Christian values since the advent of the Baptist Mission in Mbumland.     

Keywords: Indigenous Culture, Western Christianity, Wimbum, Baptist Mission, Syncretism