Evangelical Christians in the Muslim Sahel

Barbara M. Cooper

Description

Winner of the 2007 Herskovits Award

Barbara M. Cooper looks closely at the Sudan Interior Mission, an evangelical Christian mission that has taken a tenuous hold in a predominantly Hausa Muslim area on the southern fringe of Niger. Based on sustained fieldwork, personal interviews, and archival research, this vibrant, sensitive, compelling, and candid book gives a unique glimpse into an important dimension of religious life in Africa. Cooper's involvement in a violent religious riot provides a useful backdrop for introducing other themes and concerns such as Bible translation, medical outreach, public preaching, tensions between English-speaking and French-speaking missionaries, and the Christian mission's changing views of Islam.

Acknowledgments
Acronyms

Introduction: Fundamental Differences
1. Anatomy of a Riot
2. Love and Violence
3. From "Satan's Masterpiece" to "The Social Problem of Islam"
4. A Hausa Spiritual Vernacular
5. African Agency and the Growth of the Church in the Maradi Region, 1927–1960
6. Disciplining the Christian: Defining Elderhood, Christian Marriage, and "God's Work," 1933–1955
7. "An Extremely Dangerous Suspect": From Vichy-Era Travails to Postwar Triumph
8. Impasses in Vernacular Education, 1945–1995
9. Handmaid to the Gospel: SIM's Medical Work in Niger, 1944–1975
10. The Tree of Life: Regenerating and Gendering the Garden after the Fall, 1975–2000
11. Ça bouge: Hausa Christian Practice in a Muslim Milieu
Epilogue: SIM's Successors and the Pentecostal Explosion
Glossary
Notes
Works Consulted
Index

Sujets

• African Studies
• Philosophie et théologie
• Religión
• África
• General officer
• Christianity
• Anthropology
• Religion
• General
• Islam
• History
• Africa

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 10 juillet 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780253111920
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Evangelical Christians in the Muslim Sahel
African Systems of Thought
Ivan Karp, editor
Contributing editors
James W. Fernandez
Luc de Heusch
John Middleton
Roy Willis
Evangelical Christians in the Muslim Sahel
Barbara M. Cooper
Indiana University Press
Bloomington and Indianapolis
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
601 North Morton Street
Bloomington, IN 47404-3797 USA
http://iupress.indiana.edu
Telephone orders
800-842-6796
Fax orders
812-855-7931
Orders by e-mail
[e-mail]
2006 by Barbara M. Cooper
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cooper, Barbara MacGowan.
Evangelical Christians in the Muslim sahel / Barbara M. Cooper.
p. cm.-(African systems of thought)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-253-34739-4 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Missions-Niger. 2. Sudan Interior Mission. 3. SIM (Organization) 4. Christianity and other religions-Islam. 5. Islam-Relations-Christianity. 6. Christianity-Niger. 7. Islam-Niger. I. Title. II. Series.
BV3625.N48C66 2006
266 .0096626-dc22
2005032590
1 2 3 4 5 11 10 09 08 07 06
To Hawa and Ayyuba May peace be with you .
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ACRONYMS

Introduction: Fundamental Differences
1. Anatomy of a Riot
2. Love and Violence
3. From Satan s Masterpiece to The Social Problem of Islam
4. A Hausa Spiritual Vernacular
5. African Agency and the Growth of the Church in the Maradi Region, 1927-1960
6. Disciplining the Christian: Defining Elderhood, Christian Marriage, and God s Work, 1933-1955
7. An Extremely Dangerous Suspect : From Vichy-Era Travails to Postwar Triumph
8. Impasses in Vernacular Education, 1945-1995
9. Handmaid to the Gospel: SIM s Medical Work in Niger, 1944-1975
10. The Tree of Life: Regenerating and Gendering the Garden after the Fall, 1975-2000
11. a bouge: Hausa Christian Practice in a Muslim Milieu
Epilogue: SIM s Successors and the Pentecostal Explosion

GLOSSARY
NOTES
WORKS CONSULTED
INDEX
Acknowledgments
The work required to produce this book occurred on three continents with the assistance of a host of institutions and individuals. Critical funding for this work was provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Without continued support from federal funding, U.S. scholars have little hope of a deep understanding of international issues, and I am deeply grateful to the NEH for support at a formative juncture in this project. The American Historical Association provided similarly crucial support in the form of a Bernadotte E. Schmitt Research Grant. Bryn Mawr College provided faculty research support through a Madge Miller Fund Faculty Research Grant, and New York University provided a particularly generous Research Challenge Grant. My current institution, Rutgers University, has unfailingly provided funding, logistical support, and a warm and intellectually stimulating environment.
My husband, Richard Miller, and my daughters Cara and Rachel have been wonderful companions throughout this project, offering wry humor, insightful observations, and an indispensable sense of perspective. I am grateful for the emotional and intellectual support of my colleagues at the Rutgers Center for African Studies, including (among others) Ousseina Alidou, Abena Busia, Dorothy Hodgson, Allen Howard, Julie Livingston, and Rick Schroeder. Kari Bergstrom, Rob Glew, Ibrahim Hamza, Ken Harrow, Jean Hay, Adeline Masquelier, Joel Matthews, Jim McCann, Steven Pierce, David Robinson, and Sue Rosenfeld offered thoughtful comments and questions on earlier iterations of this work. Alia Hanna assisted in editing an unruly manuscript. The inimitable Kate Babbitt copy edited the manuscript with extraordinary care and improved it immeasurably.
All historians are particularly beholden to the archivists who make it possible to find traces of the past. I would like to thank Bob Arnold of the SIM International Archive in Fort Mill, South Carolina, for working so hard to make the treasure trove of SIM station records, photographs, pamphlets, memoirs, and periodicals accessible to me. His imaginative and enthusiastic assistance has been invaluable. Before SIM transferred its holdings to the archive I received gracious assistance from Jo-Ann Brant at the SIM International Resource Center in Charlotte, North Carolina. In France, the staffs of the Centre des Archives d Outre-Mer and of the Biblioth que nationale de France have been unfailingly helpful and efficient. Work on French colonial perceptions of medical work of SIM was particularly difficult to retrieve-I would like to extend special thanks to Mame N Gor Faaye and Saliou Mbaye for assistance in the Archives du S n gal at a messy moment when the documents I needed were destined to be microfilmed. Sometimes research is full of necessary dead ends-Monsieur Yataga of the Mairie in Maradi patiently assisted me as I waded through dusty and crumbly civil records to retrieve the irretrievable. In Niamey, Gazali Abdou Mahamane helped me with the more satisfying task of tracking down the colonial-era rapports de tourn e for Tsibiri and Maradi in the Archives nationales du Niger. In Maradi, EERN president Abdou Lawali made records of the Evangelical Church available to me, and MIDP director Joel Matthews gave me access to materials on SIM s recent development initiatives.
Sometimes private letters, informal filing cabinets of papers, and generously shared personal writings shed more light on the past than formal archival materials. I have been very fortunate that so many individuals have been willing to share these more or less private materials with me in the interest of furthering an understanding of the past and the present. Missionaries Rita Salls and Immie Larsen shared their private letters with me; Pastor Abdou Lawali, Peter Cunningham, and Joel Mathews shared their own published and unpublished writings; and journalist Illia Djadi forwarded his precious but difficult-to-find articles about religion and politics in Maradi. Neal Childs shared tapes of radio sermons that would otherwise have been utterly lost to history. All of these acts of generosity opened important windows of understanding to me, and I am very grateful to each of these individuals for their courageous openness to sharing with a secular scholar.
Over the years I have accrued a tremendous debt to retired SIM missionary Liz Chisholm, who has on several occasions assisted me in contacting missionaries who have worked in the Maradi region and has graciously hosted me in her home. I would like to thank her and her sister Ruth for their kindness and generosity (and, I suspect, a few prayers) over the years. Rita Salls and Ray de la Haye have recounted their experiences faithfully on numerous occasions. I am very grateful to them and to all the other retired missionaries who consented to be interviewed and whose perspectives on the past have provided invaluable material for this book.
This book would never have been written if Tony and Liz Rinaudo had not invited me into their home in Maradi many years ago, introduced me to Christian converts, and offered me the use of their telephone. The SIM International and Vie Abondante missionaries working in Niger today have been equally helpful and kind. They are too numerous to name here, but I would like to thank in particular Philippe Hutter for encouraging me as a secular scholar to work on the history of the SIM mission. Joel and Alice Matthews have become good friends and models from whom I have learned much about what a Christian family life might be. Susan and Andrew Strong made me feel welcome and safe in the SIM guest house in Maradi. Vie Abondante missionary Neal Childs and his mother Jerry Childs were generous in offering their perspectives on Christianity and mission work with me. Barbara Kapenga was a wonderful neighbor at the EERN guest house, and I value her balanced reflections on language and spirituality more than I can say.
Most of all I must offer my deep thanks to all the Nig rien Christians in Maradi and Niamey who have assisted me in this project, befriended me, and tolerated my eccentricities. Professor Addo Mahamane of the History Department at the Universit de Niamey has been a wonderful colleague. Pastor Abdou Lawali passed many hours with me chatting about what evangelical Christianity means, about the spiritual landscape of Maradi, and about his own writings. I enjoyed staying in the EERN guest house immensely as a result of his friendliness and his intelligent observations of Maradi life. My stays there were also made all the more pleasant by Habsatu and her husband Soji, who also took me in as something of an adoptive daughter during my visits. Warm appreciation to all the members of the congregation of glise Sonitan, which has been so generous in opening its community to me, and especially to the women of the zummutar mata . Pastors Cherif and dan Nana were extraordinarily generous with their time, experiences,