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Augustine S. O. Okwu. Igbo Culture and the Christian Missions 1857-1957: Conversion in Theory and Practice. Lanham: University Press of America, 2010. xi, 329 pp.
Augustine Okwu's Igbo Culture and the Christian Missions discusses the role of Christian missions in the southern region of Nigeria, also known as the Igboland from 1857 until the end of the colonial period. Focusing on two main missionary bodies, the Roman Catholic Mission (RCM) and the Christian Missionary Society (CMS), the book explores the different missionary methods and strategies and Igbo response. The book's underlying goal is to explain that Christian missionaries sought to completely wipe out the traditions of the Igbo people, resulting in the unsuccessful conversion of the Igbo to Christianity. In discussing the overall Christianization efforts, Okwu explains that the missionaries had a non-transformative influence and that this could be the result of a variety of factors such as the abiding relevance of the indigenous culture, ineffective evangelistic strategies, poor missionary personnel, absence of true missionary spirit, and the lack of understanding of the indigenous culture (p. 306).
Chapters one through three discuss the history of the Igbo, their role in...