The Sierra Leone Native Pastorate Church (1850-1890): an experiment in ecclesiastical independence

Abstract

The Native Pastorate concept was largely formulated by Henry Venn (Secretary of the Church Missionary Society, 1841-1872), who enunciated the revolutionary theory that the "settlement of a native Church, under native pastors, upon a selfsupporting system" was the ultimate objective of a mission. This study brings that concept under a microscope, and makes a thorough investigation of its implementation in Sierra Leone, which became the testing ground of the experiment.After three failed attempts, the Sierra Leone Native Pastorate was established in 1861. Its first ten years, under Bishop Beckles (1860-1870), were anxious and problemridden. Beset by financial problems (which persisted throughout our period of study), plagued by enduring racial tensions, and undermined by episcopal absenteeism, the experiment made little progress. Also, the ideal of selfgovernment ignited native aspirations, which collided irrevocably with European missionary dominance and ethnocentrism, and eventually erupted into a full-blown race controversy. Fuelled by a nascent nationalism, this controversy produced the first - albeit transient - calls for the establishment of a truly independent African Church, free from all foreign element.The expansion and consolidation of the Pastorate under Bishop Cheetham (1871-1880) - occasioned partly by a complete (if hasty) CMS withdrawal - saw its evolvement into an all native affair (the European bishop excepted). In the period that followed - during Bishop Ingham's episcopate (1883-1896) - violent discords between Pastors and laity, rising lay agitation for greater representation (in the government of the Pastorate), and acrimonious contention over ministerial removals coalesced into a major constitutional crisis. Constitutional reform arguably brought the Native Church closer to full ecclesiastical independence, but internal strife left it embattled and enfeebled. Still, in thirty years of existence, the Pastorate had become largely selfsupporting and self-governing to a significant extent. A native episcopate, the crowning glory of the scheme, seemed a doubtful privilege and remained an elusive ideal. Selfpropagation was also a missing ingredient. Nonetheless, the Sierra Leone Native Pastorate was "the great experiment of modern Missions"; and its unremitting struggle to overcome inherent pitfalls made it a powerful paradigm of the bid for ecclesiastical independence.