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De Gruchy, John. ed. 2000. THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY IN SOUTHERN AFRICA, 1799-1999: HISTORICAL ESSAYS IN CELEBRATION OF THE BICENTENARY OF THE LMS IN SOUTHERN AFRICA. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, ix, 229 pp. $24.95
To celebrate the London Missionary Society's bicentennial, its lineal descendant, the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa, requested a scholarly critical reflection on the LMS past. The resulting anthology inevitably reflects individual authors' interests and is in no sense a general history of the LMS in Southern Africa over the last two centuries: there is little on the early LMS and almost nothing on the 20th century, except for a few pages on the early 1900s in the closing section of the final essay. Apart from some references to the work of Robert Moffat and David Livingstone further afield, this volume is more about South Africa than the wider region.
The editor, Professor John de Gruchy of the University of Cape Town, is a UCCSA minister and a respected authority on South African Christianity. He explains in his introduction that this volume is neither celebratory nor apologetic; rather, it examines the missionaries' successes and failures in promoting the gospel, at a time when their legacy remains highly relevant. The LMS is the best known and most controversial missionary group in Southern African history: in the early 19th century, it was widely detested by white settlers for defending Africans' rights, yet ironically was later accused of furthering British imperialism and capitalism. Since it became Congregationalist by default, as members of other denominations joined newer societies, its story...