Page 163 - LD215 History of the Church in Africa A4 final

Nineteenth-Century Challenges and Progress

a deceased person) on John Newton’s grave indicates what God can do
by His abundant grace:

JOHN NEWTON, clerk
Once an infidel and libertine,
A servant of slaves in Africa
Was, by the rich mercy of our
LORD and SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST
Preserved, restored, pardoned,
And appointed to preach the faith he
Had long laboured to destroy.

Christian Colonies

While some church historians believe that European missionaries
brought Christianity to Africa, this is a misconception. Although western
missionaries did come to Africa, Africans were also messengers of the
good news about Jesus Christ. We have already noted the progress of the
church along the Nile Corridor and the survival of the Ethiopian church
in the early and middle centuries. We also learned that Philip Quaque
was the first non-European missionary to be sent by the Anglican Church
to West Africa as early as 1765. Thus, Quaque’s mission predates the
independence of the United States.

There was a direct connection between the campaign to abolish
slavery and the formation of colonies in Africa. As we have noted several
times in this course, the sovereign power of God can take the affairs of
man and overrule by providing agents to fulfill His purpose. The colonies
of Sierra Leone and Liberia brought Africans back to the continent—
Africans who were committed to Christ and who had a burden to share
the good news with fellow Africans.

Evidence suggests that the commercial practice of slavery was in full
swing in Europe and North America in the eighteenth century. However,
in a famous court decision in England in 1772, a judge declared that
slavery was alien to the law of the land. As Sanneh notes,

The specific case in which Lord Mansfield handed down his
judgement concerned a slave called James Somerset. The

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