Posted: January 25th, 2023

Imperialism and Christianity

Imperialism and Christianity: A Critical Analysis

Imperialism is the policy or practice of extending a country's power and influence through colonization, exploitation, or military force. Christianity is the world's largest religion, based on the teachings of Jesus Christ and his followers. How are these two concepts related, and what are the impacts of their interaction on history and society?

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In this blog post, I will argue that Christianity has often been used as an arm of imperialism, serving the interests of the colonial powers and undermining the cultures, religions, and identities of the colonized peoples. I will also examine some of the critiques and resistances that have emerged from the colonized perspectives, as well as some of the attempts to decolonize Christianity and reclaim its liberating potential.

Christianity as an arm of imperialism

Christianity and colonialism are often closely associated with each other due to the service of Christianity, in its various sects (namely Protestantism, Catholicism and Orthodoxy), as the state religion of the historical European colonial powers, in which Christians likewise made up the majority . Through a variety of methods, Christian missionaries acted as the "religious arms" of the imperialist powers of Europe . According to Edward E. Andrews, Associate Professor of Providence College , Christian missionaries were initially portrayed as "visible saints, exemplars of ideal piety in a sea of persistent savagery". However, by the time the colonial era drew to a close in the later half of the 20th century, missionaries were viewed as "arrogant and rapacious imperialists" , colonialism's "agent, scribe and moral alibi" .

Christian missionaries supported the European imperialists in the following ways: they cheated the African Kings in favor of Imperialists; they supported the destruction of the African kingdoms; they accommodated colonialists; they were witnesses during the signing of treaties; they were part of the invading columns; they signed fake treaties in favor of colonialists; they acted as interpreters during negotiations; they acted as spies for colonialists; they acted as teachers for colonialists; they acted as doctors for colonialists; they acted as judges for colonialists; they acted as administrators for colonialists; they acted as land surveyors for colonialists; they acted as tax collectors for colonialists; they acted as policemen for colonialists; they acted as soldiers for colonialists; they acted as prison wardens for colonialists; they acted as executioners for colonialists .

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One of the justifying principles behind colonialism was the need to civilize the purportedly backward peoples of Africa. This idea was expressed in Rudyard Kipling's poem published in 1899 in McClure's Magazine entitled "White Man's Burden":

Take up the White Man's burden—
Send forth the best ye breed—
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild—
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.

The idea of the White Man's Burden was to better ("seek another's profit") an ostensibly backward people (anyone who was not white). Kipling bemoaned that the African people would come "slowly to the light" and would lament their release from "bondage". In essence, Kipling believed that these non-white racial groups were so backward that they would be unable to comprehend the benefits of Europeanization. It was Kipling's belief that Africans must be pulled toward the "light" in order to see the error of their, in his view, savage nature .

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Under the pretense of humanitarian theology, European powers strategically implemented Christianity as a divisive imperialistic tool. In a missionary memoir written by monk named Daniel Kumler F

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