The Writings and Legacy of Adrian Hastings

Adrian Hastings (1929–2001) was a Catholic priest, theologian, human rights campaigner, and historian, whose prolific writings on African Christianity, and as editor of The Journal of Religion in Africa from 1984–1999, exercised a profound influence on the study of Christianity throughout colonial and post-colonial sub-Saharan Africa. His work is characterised by a search for an ecumenical rather than a sectarian perspective, the wide-ranging scope and humanity of his vision, and his ability to integrate religious history with wider political, social, and cultural concerns. Born into a strong English Catholic family, he developed a vocation to the priesthood while at Oxford University. His vision was for an open, progressive Catholicism, and he welcomed the reforms of Vatican II. Trained as a missionary, he persuaded the White Fathers (despite their misgivings) to release him to go to Africa as a secular priest, working in Masaka, Uganda, the first diocese in the modern Catholic church which was headed by an African Bishop, Joseph Kiwanuka. Fr Hastings’ liberal ideas created opposition in both the seminary in which he taught and among the Ugandan episcopal hierarchy. Leaving Uganda, he worked in Tanzania, producing a monthly newsletter aimed at explaining the decrees of the Second Vatican Council to African clergy. Subsequently he worked at the ecumenical institute of Mindolo in Zambia and was asked by the Anglican bishops of Eastern Africa to investigate the state of Christian marriage in the contemporary African church. He was a strong advocate of racial equality in southern Africa and highlighted the injustices perpetrated by Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique. In Britain he pioneered the study of African Christianity, first in Aberdeen and then in Leeds. He was a prolific writer, a sophisticated theologian, and historian of modern Catholicism and ecumenical Christianity, including a study of the modern history of English Christianity. He wrote a wide-ranging account of contemporary African Christianity during the period 1950–1975. His magnum opus, The Church in Africa 1450–1950, was published in 1994.