Missions and Contemporary African Rulers

The Christian mandate to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ has taken different shades since the fifteenth century when the Europeans made their incursion into Africa. But since the nineteenth century, the Christian mission took a different turn with the missionaries staging a relatively favorable attitude toward indigenous cultures. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the missionaries had largely positively re-evaluated indigenous cultures—paving way to missional policies such as Vatican II in the 1960s. Nevertheless, the aim of this chapter is to demonstrate how Pentecostals, particular members of the Church of Pentecost (CoP), who remained largely hostile toward chieftaincy, have since the 1980s shown favorable disposition toward chieftaincy. Pentecostal chiefs have become key stakeholders in the Christian mission. As part of reconciling chieftaincy and Pentecostal Christianity, CoP chiefs have reinvented traditions to curate their chieftaincy toward mission. These chiefs have also invested in social services as part of the Christian mission to their people. All these have been possible because of the nature of indigenous religion as a this-worldly focus, aimed at helping human beings to deal with life’s existential issues. For this reason, CoP chiefs have rearticulated chieftaincy both as practice and as mission-oriented to support human flourishing in their Traditional Areas.