Christianity and the African Counter-Discourse in Achebe and Beti

Book excerpt: Christianity and the African Counter-Discourse in Achebe and Beti: Cultures in Dialogue, Contest and Conflict intervenes, in light of African literary products, the history of Christianity in Africa in late 19th and early 20th centuries, goes beyond the existing clichés about the operations of the European Christian missionaries whether Protestant or Catholic in Africa, and opens alternative ways to read the chain of missionary-native African, and missionary-European colonists relationships. Christian missionaries did not come to Africa for: their own interests, the Christianization of Africa, European colonial projects, the interests of Africans, the establishment of European civilization in Africa, but came for all. Once, there was a dialogue between the Christian missionaries and pagan Africans which was in time replaced by contest for superiority, and finally by conflict. Accordingly, the countenance of the continent has changed forever.