Page 47 - LD215 History of the Church in Africa A4 final

African Christian Heritage

Semites from Yemen who invaded Eritrea founded the kingdom of
Axum and penetrated Abyssinia (45). We will focus on the arrival of
Christianity in this area in another chapter.

Not much has been written about other parts of Africa south of
the Sahara during this era, but that does not make it less significant.
Evidence suggests that in the maritime trade across the Indian Ocean,
Indonesians traveled to Mauritius, Madagascar, and the East Africa
coast. This trade resulted in the introduction of Malaysian food plants
into this region. It was the “beginning of the westward spread of these
crops across Africa north of the tropical forest to the Guinea coast”
(Murdock, 45). This migration brought the settlement of Indonesians in
Madagascar whom we know as the ancestors of the modern Malagasy.

Beginning in approximately the first century A.D., the empire of
Ghana in West Central Africa developed along with the penetration
of Bantu farmers in the Cameroon and the Congo Basin. We are not
certain whether these people migrated from the northern or southern
Congo forest, but there is a consensus among scholars that “some time
after the first century they began a most interesting migration. They
pushed east and south until by the eighteenth century they were the
dominant peoples of East, Central, and Southern Africa” (4).

Some cultural anthropologists note that bushmen, who were small
in numbers but were skilled hunters who had settled in Tanganyika,
Zimbabwe, and territories to south, were pushed by the Bantu into smaller
isolated communities. For the sake of this study, let us note that the God
of all people was involved in these migrations. In His divine purpose, He
included the sharing of His message of redemption and the establishing
of His kingdom in the midst of these earthly kingdoms.

At times, we wish we knew more about the impact of the gospel
message in Africa south of the Sahara between A.D. 30 and 1800. It
is appropriate to ask serious questions about the missional nature
of church and its lack of concern for this area of the world during
these centuries.

The first event that links Africa to the Christian story occurred
immediately after the birth of Jesus, which Matthew relates in chapter 2.

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